Thanksgiving Day crept up on me quickly this year. The days grow shorter and fly by faster in a blur of busyness that takes too little notice of the changing of the seasons. Christmas comes with weeks of commercial clatter and four Sundays of Advent anticipation. Thanksgiving often arrives unannounced.
The persistent poet, novelist and editor who tirelessly championed the national holiday understood its importance. In all our rushing and doing, pausing to give thanks often goes undone.
“There is a deep moral influence in these periodical seasons of rejoicing, in which whole communities participate,” wrote Sarah Josepha Hale in 1835. “They bring out, and together, as it were, the best sympathies in our natures.”
For three decades Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, sought to have Thanksgiving Day proclaimed a national holiday. Although many states and communities celebrated Thanksgiving annually, national observances had been rare since George Washington declared the first National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789.
In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln rewarded her efforts by declaring the last Thursday of November “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Ever since, we’ve celebrated the holiday each November.
Lincoln’s proclamation, coming just months after the bloody Union victory at Gettysburg, established the Thanksgiving ideals of optimism, gratitude and faith. Although the war would continue for two years, Gettysburg marked the turning point.
The president reminded the embattled nation that the year had “been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies… harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict (which) has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.”
The war has “not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines… have yielded even more abundantly,” he said. The country “is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.”
He concludes the prayer of thanksgiving with one of supplication, asking for “the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it … to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”
Some suggest strategic considerations led Lincoln to embrace Hale’s call for a national day of Thanksgiving as a way of boosting Union morale in those dark days of conflict. That strikes me as excessively cynical. The solemnity and grace of the proclamation offer no hint of partisan cheerleading. It is clear that in giving thanks we are uplifted and drawn together, as Hale intended.
We are again observing a wartime Thanksgiving Day. The men and women of our armed forces serving in Iraq and around the world, far from home and separated from their families, merit our prayers, respect and gratitude this day. The freedoms we enjoy, and too often take for granted, have been won at great cost. Tomorrow, remember those whose sacrifices secure that freedom in our day.
The solemnity, however, does not require a day of sackcloth and ashes. Hale saw Thanksgiving as a “merry anniversary” and likened it to the Biblical “feast of fat things.” There’s divine happiness in humble gratitude and in what Hale called the “sweet joys of social intercourse and innocent merry-making.”
We are a blessed nation and it’s good to remember that joyfully.
While we conventionally associate the day with the harvest season and the banquet in Plymouth, Hale recognized an additional reason for placing the holiday in late November. In 1857, she noted that, by the end of the month, “the war of politics will be over for the year.”
I suspect there will be more than a few political wars fought over turkey and cranberries tomorrow. The war of politics rarely takes a day off. The family get-togethers provide ample opportunity to rehearse longstanding partisan disputes. Thanksgiving may be one of the few days when the NFL plays the diversionary role of peacemaker, as we turn from the table to the television.
Thanksgiving Day, however, transcends both politics and football. It’s a day for reflection and renewal, for the celebration of family, friends, freedom and opportunity.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Richard S. Davis, vice president-communications of the Association of Washington Business, writes every other Wednesday. His columns do not necessarily reflect the views of AWB. Write Davis at richardd@awb.org or Association of Washington Business, P.O. Box 658, 1414 Cherry Street SE, Olympia, WA 98507-0658.
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