Thanksgiving

Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

William Bradford (my 14th great grandfather) said these historic words. Everyone know what we do on Thanksgiving: gather together with family and eat lots of yummy food. But something many people have forgotten is what Thanksgiving is really about, and that's giving thanks (thanks giving). It is really easy to get caught up in the woe-is-me attitude, to always worry if there's going to be enough of anything, that we forget that there are always so many little things to be thankful for. I encourage you this Thanksgiving to think about those little things, and thank God for them.

~Have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving~