“Two thousand miles westward from the rock where their fathers landed, may now be found the sons of the Pilgrims,…cherishing [the] blessings of wise institutions, of liberty, and religion. The world has seen nothing like this.”

— Daniel Webster, 1820

Thanksgiving Day is one of my favorite holidays. It’s a time to personally reflect upon every reason one has to feel thankful.

As Americans, we’re most fortunate to have been born in our beautiful, scenic country. There is not one state that does not simply take your breath away with its special charm. From California all across the Midwest to the Southern states, God has blessed this land with His special touch of natural splendor.

Like most folks, I look forward to the holidays, a special time when family members will be together. At times, we have special guests who come from afar. This year, my uncle’s cousin will be visiting us from Sicily. It will be so enjoyable to see Michael and his wife Maria. Their youngest daughter is still a teenager. “Maria pia” speaks very good English, which simplifies things for us. Wouldn’t you know that none of us speaks Italian, with exception of a few words?

When my mother was alive, she spoke fluent Italian along with her own language, French. She was our in-house translator. The rest of us had fun trying to talk to our guests with our hands, while speaking loudly. Somehow speaking loudly makes us who are foreign-language-deficient feel better about ourselves, and a good time is had by all, as they say.

Fond family memories

Thanksgiving often fell on my mother’s birthday. We miss her very much. As time moves forward, it lessens the loss with the fondest memories of loved ones who once gathered together at the family’s festive table.

In our home, Thanksgiving is a time of happiness and traditions, which include a cornucopia of delicious foods. The menu provides a succulent roasted turkey, corn bread stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, and fresh vegetables. All the trimmings are presented on a beautifully decorated table in the formal dining room.
Emanating throughout the entire home are the sweet and comfortable aromas that take me back to my childhood, and I smile. Most every family has a certain dish that is prepared especially for these occasions. Creamed onions were mom’s prized recipe that was passed on through the generations. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without creamed onions, minced and pumpkin pie, and mom’s fruitcake. This year, there are no exceptions.

This year, I’m also baking a birthday cake to start a new tradition in remembrance of my mother’s special day.

God’s gifts

The holidays provide us with another reason to share our love. We attend worship services and celebrate with our church family. The season is a very good time to understand who we are as Americans, especially this year. We are good people with great big caring hearts who have rediscovered the importance of our country’s Constitution. Patriotism and appreciation of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have stirred the souls of America’s citizens.

As Thanksgiving Day usually progressed in our home, grandpa would treat us to a little history lesson about the Pilgrims. He was quite a gifted story-teller. We clung onto his every word with the greatest of interest. Be inspired, yourself, when reading about the hardships the pilgrims went through, and learn from them.

Of the small band of the 102 Mayflower passengers, only half remained alive by spring. Yet as they gathered together, not knowing who else would live or die, they found solace in God, and they prayed for His abiding love to lead them forward. And, as the story is told, there were friendly native Indians who helped the new arrivers survive in the place they would call home. It was then that the very first Thanksgiving celebration took place by feasting and praising the Creator of all mankind.

‘Our country may be in serious trouble’

Below are excerpts from “The Truth of Thanksgiving,” by Matt Spivey, published in the American Thinker. Matt suggests a re-commitment among Americans:

“Our nation has dramatically changed since the inception of this special day.

“I asked my students if they knew the original intent of the day we now call Thanksgiving. To my consternation, these were a few of those responses:

“‘Isn’t it to celebrate the final time we showed unity with the Indians before we massacred them?’

“‘I think some important document might’ve been signed that day, right?’

“‘Does it symbolize how the Native Americans taught white people how to cook?’

“These are some of your nation’s college students…participants in American high academia. Our country may be in serious trouble.

“In an effort to spark an argument for the benefit of the next composition assignment, we read President Lincoln’s official Thanksgiving declaration. To my students’ surprise, they learned that our then-leader openly believed that America resided under ‘the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.’ They discovered that we have received ‘the gracious gifts of the Most High God.’ They saw that the original goal of our founders was to ‘praise our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.’ They read how Lincoln asked for ‘the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation’ and our actions to be “consistent with the Divine purposes.’ And they noticed that he signed the document “in the year of our Lord.

“In 1863, in a country battling racism and separatism, in a land divided by the blood of our brothers, Lincoln wrote of guidance from a higher power and blessings bestowed by an eternal giver. In 2008, in a country embracing humanism and secularism, in a land divided by the ideologies of our neighbors, we need Lincoln’s words now more than ever. We are a nation fighting against God while Lincoln fought for Him. And in our efforts to exclude divinity, we have created taboos of moments of silence, scandals over school pageants, and lawsuits over morality. Thanksgiving was initially intended as a day of Christian observation. Today, food and football are America’s religion….

“For those of us who do keep the holiday as the Pilgrims intended and follow the words of Lincoln, Thanksgiving is a peaceful day of prayer, family, and worship for the gifts bestowed upon us…. [I]n this spirit of giving and kindness and blessing, I will forgive those who misinterpret the true meaning of Thanksgiving. I…recommend that all Americans, regardless of beliefs, take part in being thankful for living in the greatest country God has ever allowed to be created.” Full article

Thanks be to God

Let us take stock of this very important day by remembering its true intent. The presence of our Almighty God is intertwined in America’s holidays and history. Have a very blessed Thanksgiving.

Also, a very Merry Christmas is happily awaiting us. I’ll save my thoughts for another day about the New Year that lies ahead.

Related Readings: View: Lincoln Presidential Proclamation

View: Pilgrim Hall Museum

View :The Plymouth Area-Chamber of Commerce-Listen to Historic Audio

© Marie Jon

 

WesternFront America

The “War on Thanksgiving” never seems to end.

In the spirit of full disclosure allow me to set the record straight: I am part Native American — as are so many, many, Americans. BOTH my grandmothers were, at the very least, half American Indian… either Eastern Cherokee or Catawba. I suspect Catawba. As a youngster it was not uncommon to have the chief of the local tribe visiting at my grandparent’s home. The reservation was just a short distance from my childhood home. A 15-minute drive would put one on reservation soil.

The point is, I did not grow up in an atmosphere in which the American Indian was seen as having been robbed of his land or his country. They were our neighbors and many were our relatives, making them family.

Now that you know the above, you will understand why I do not buy into the bovine scatology the lefties have been selling our kids for the past, oh, nearly two generations.

Yes, the US government has screwed the American Indian. That cannot be denied. On the other hand, you and I have been screwed by that same government, as well! Promises were made and never kept. Treaties were made — and broken — seemingly before the ink was dry on the paper. So, yes, the American Indian got a raw deal from the US government.

Nothing much has changed. Today as the Democrats in Congress ram through a National Healthcare bill they are making copious promises that will never be kept — and — what is worse, they KNOW they won’t be kept because they have no intention of keeping them. It is an attempt to fool just enough people, just long enough, to get the bill passed through Congress and signed into law by the President. So, if you think you have been screwed by the US government please take a number and/or get in line.

Thanksgiving is a time for solemn reflection on the blessings we DID receive. Yes, Obama is probably the worst president in the history of the United States, but it could have been worse. Mrs. Clinton could have easily won and we’d have Bill back in the White House — again — along with all the embarrassment(s) that follow along after him. So, I will not thank God that Obama won, I will, however, thank God that Mrs. Clinton did not!

Even in the midst of the recession America has so much for which to be thankful. The President’s Afghanistan policy, unfortunately, is NOT one of them.

Obama is to announce his plans for our military in Afghanistan early next week. Already reports are (I believe some are “trial balloons.”) slipping out that the President’s Afghanistan plan is a “minefield” for the administration. (As if the Administration even knows what a “minefield” is!) Until you have had your nose 18 inches, or so, from a mine while you delicately dig it from the soil with your bayonet, while trying, unsuccessfully, to keep the trembling in your hands to a minimum, you really are not qualified to refer to a piece of presidential policy as a “minefield.”

Whatever the President decides, I expect it will lead to a lot of things in Afghanistan, but victory will not be among them. Face it, America. We have won our last war.

However, I WILL thank God, this Thanksgiving, that our troops have not been over run, by Taliban forces, while the President dithers around trying to formulate an Afghanistan policy that will make him look good in the eyes of the world.

I will thank God that His people, in Israel, are still standing tall against those nations that would wipe them off the map. I will pray, as well, that the Israelis know that our President’s policy toward Israel does not reflect the feelings of the American people toward our only true friend in the Middle East.

And, finally, I will give thanks that we STILL retain the freedom to assemble and petition the government for redress. And — I will, most earnestly, pray that the American people find their spine and begin to speak out against the godless socialist/communist leanings of our current government and commit themselves to the effort to return this nation to the constitutional representative republic intended by the Founding Fathers.

And allow me to close with this: I don’t CARE who attended the first Thanksgiving and I care even less about who brought what to that first Thanksgiving table. I am just happy that representatives of both the races represented in my DNA were seated there in peace.

Happy Thanksgiving!

J. D. Longstreet

 

WesternFront America

Each Thanksgiving, the President pardons a turkey — an actual barnyard fowl and not a member of Congress.  For the most part, the custom is itself harmless and mildly cute; however, should taxpaying citizens learn what is done with the turkey, they will likely end up with a case of indigestion.

According to a Fox News account, after the White House ceremony the turkey was to be flown first class to Disneyland in California.  There the gobbling celebrity was to serve as the grand marshal of the park’s Thanksgiving parade.

Many would dismiss this story as something not to get worked up over.  Yet in this dawning era where we are constantly reminded how our very way of life must change or face collapse along various fronts, escorting a turkey to Disneyland in stratospheric luxury raises a number of questions.

First, is the turkey being sent there at taxpayer expense?  If Disney wants the bird, that corporation is the party that should pick up the airfare.

Relatedly and even more importantly, shouldn’t those that have set themselves up as our betters and the ones out to impose the new paradigms upon the rest of us have to live by their own standards?

For example, a letter to the editor published in the Prince George’s Sentinel attempts to guilt-trip the reader into foregoing the turkey dinner by insinuating that this traditional culinary centerpiece is somehow bad for the environment.  But what about the resources expended to get the turkey from Washington to California, and, even more importantly, what about the “carbon footprint” (the term used by beatniks of expanding girth like Al Gore to make themselves feel better about their own ostentatious consumption) left behind each year by the Disney corporation.

I for one have no problem with amusement parks and similar resorts.  However, I am not the one haranguing the average American, who can hardly afford luxury vacations these days, into giving up one of the few remaining pleasures available, namely a reasonably priced turkey dinner.

Often, America?s Puritan and Separatist founders are depicted as absolutely joyless and not having much fun in their lives.  And maybe so by out standards. However, these solemn patriarchs are party animals in comparison to the glum-faced busybodies out to control in the name of the environment all aspects of the food you consume from what can go into your mouth and,  increasingly as in regards to proclamations regarding no flush toilets, what is to be done with it once it comes out.

 

WesternFront America