11/27/08 HAPPY THANKSGIVING, BUT DON'T TURN ON THE TV

Thursday, 8:15 AM. 25 degrees, wind W, calm. Skies are partly cloudy, and the barometer predicts precipitation.
Happy Thanksgiving! The deer are off the hook for today. Our family is scattered across the country (Ohio, Texas, Colorado) so we will spend the holiday with some of our church family, a welcome substitute. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, a secular Holy Day, if that is not an oxymoron. No presents to buy, no cards to send, no services to attend, just good food, and good fellowship. In many respects it is our oldest national holiday, whether one considers its origin to be in 1621 with the traditional harvest feast between Indians and Pilgrims (a good beginning, to which I believe we have finally returned, if we can only elude the grasp of the politically correct). In 1777, Sam Adams of Massachusetts declared a Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate the victory at Saratoga. There were numerous other dates and proclamations, and finally the third Thursday of November was proclaimed by President Roosevelt in 1941 during the depths of World War II as a national day of Thanksgiving. It seems that Thanksgiving is usually celebrated during the depths of one crisis or outrage or another, and the TV is best kept off for the day unless watching football.
Later: it was a fine traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner, eight of us together who otherwise would have probably been alone. It has been a somewhat snowy day and the fire was kept burning brightly. Lucky ate the giblets, all of us are happily sated and back to our own devices, and wonder of wonders, the dishes are mostly done. Having had our Thanksgiving, we can take on the world again tomorrow.