Chapter 32: Helping Children Feel Thanksgiving
Every fourth Thursday of November, American families gather to eat turkey and watch football. The holiday is called Thanksgiving. The prevailing reason for Thanksgiving is to remember the Pilgrims’ feast after their plentiful harvest of 1621. But the first and sixteenth presidents of the United States declared a loftier purpose for the holiday. President George Washington issued a proclamation in November 1789. He declared a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be” (See heritage.org/washingtons-thanksgiving-proclamation ). In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. In his proclamation, he expressed gratitude for: “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies”; the population increase and...