Why is Thanksgiving on a Thursday?

Real Simple ~ History of Traditional Thanksgiving Foods ~ https://www.realsimple.com/holidays-entertaining/holidays/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving

Halloween is over and we are already preparing for the next celebration/holiday. For me, November is a month of more than “Thanksgiving,” for it holds the date of my mother’s birth, my son’s birth, and my grandson’s birth. Thanksgiving is the month of sweet potatoes and fruit salad and pumpkin pie and . . . Notice I did not say “turkey.” You see I am a borderline vegetarian (I eat lots of fish and occasionally a bit of chicken, but not much other MEAT. Turkey is simply “okay,” but sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows is a required food for those living in the South, as I am in North Carolina.

Do any of you know the actual date of Thanksgiving for this year? You see, unlike Christmas, the date for Thanksgiving varies every year. It ranks up there with Easter as “a moveable feast,” not the Ernest Hemingway book by the same name, but rather an observance (generally on a Christian liturgical calendar) which occurs on different dates in different years, though we all know Thanksgiving is not a religious celebration, even if we attribute it to the Puritans.

(BTW, my 10th great grandparents, who traveled to America on the Mayflower) were Priscilla Mullins and John Alden of the ““Speak for Yourself, John” fame, one of the most quoted lines from “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (my 6th cousin 5x removed). When John Alden supposedly relayed Myles Standish’s feelings for Priscilla, Priscilla famously replied, “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” In the poem, her reply leads to their courtship.

If you are interested, I have written two stories based around “The Courtship of Miles Standish.”

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The Courtship of Lord Blackhurst

What happens when a lady falls in love, not with her betrothed, but rather with his cousin?

Miss Priscilla Keenan has been promised to the Marquess of Blackhurst since her birth. The problem is: She has never laid eyes upon the man. So, when Blackhurst sends his cousin to York to assist Priscilla in readying Blackhurst’s home estate for the marquess’s return from his service in India, it is only natural for Priscilla to ask Mr. Alden something of the marquess’s disposition. Yet, those conversations lead Cilla onto a different path, one where she presents her heart to the wrong gentleman. How can she and Alden find happiness together when the world means to keep them apart? Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” this tale wants for nothing, especially not a happy ending, which it has, but that ending is not what the reader anticipates.

Purchase Links:

Kindle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09237K1ZY?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited

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Captain Stanwick’s Bride: Tragic Characters in Classic Lit Series Novel

“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.” – Benjamin Franklin

Captain Whittaker Stanwick has a successful military career and a respectable home farm in Lancashire. What he does not have in his life is felicity. Therefore, when the opportunity arrives, following his wife’s death, Stanwick sets out to know a bit of happiness, at last—finally to claim a woman who stirs his soul. Yet, he foolishly commits himself to one woman only weeks before he has found a woman, though shunned by her people and his, who touches his heart. Will he deny the strictures placed upon him by society in order learn the secret of happiness is freedom: Freedom to love and freedom to know courage?

Loosely based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Miles Standish” and set against the final battles of the War of 1812, this tale shows the length a man will go to in order to claim a remarkable woman as his.

Kindle https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W9GW1M8

Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited

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Now, let us return the problem at hand: What exactly is the date for Thanksgiving this year, and why can it not be the same date every year?

Do you know the date of Thanksgiving this year? Is it on the 24th? The 26th? The 23rd? The 25th? Likely, all you really know it that Thanksgiving in the U.S. falls on a Thursday. Did you ever wonder why it is on a Thursday? Has Thanksgiving always been on a Thursday?

That first Thanksgiving meal that the Puritans had with the Womponoag Indians was in 1621. We have no idea whether it was on a Thursday, but some speculate that it was a Thursday, for the Pilgrims would have chosen a day several days removed from the Sabbath and most belive that first Thanksgiving was a 3-days’ feast. It also likely took place in mid-October, not late November, for if you have ever been in Massachusetts in November, you know snow was likely a problem.

Thursday was also a typical day for lectures in New England, which may have contributed to the reason Thanksgiving is a Thursday.

Thomas Jefferson also insisted that Thanksgiving not be on a Sunday, as he believed it was a conflict of church and state to require the American people to hold a day of prayer and thanksgiving.

In 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation designating November 26 of that year as a “Day of Publick Thanksgivin” to recognize the role of providence in creating the new United States and the new federal Constitution.

In the mid-19th century, author Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, who is best known for creating the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” pushed to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. [I would recommend you become familiar with Hale’s works, for she was a great proponent of women’s rights in the mid 1800s.] Hale used her persuasive writings to support the creation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. “Beginning in 1846, she charged the president and other leading politicians to push for the national celebration of Thanksgiving, which was then only celebrated in the Northeast. Her requests for recognition were largely ignored by politicians until 1863. While the nation was in the middle of the Civil War, President Lincoln signed into action “A National Day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” [Sarah Josepha Hale] Hale’s letter to Lincoln is often cited as the main factor in his decision.” Lincoln designated the national day of Thanksgiving to be the last Thursday in November.

The last Thursday of November was the rule for nearly eight decades. In the 1930s, though, retailers began to complain when Novembers with five Thursdays rolled around, for it did not leave enough shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

President Roosevelt changed the date to the third Thursday in November, but doing so proved not so popular with people, at least, so says the Farmer’s Almanac.

Between 1939 and 1941, different states celebrated Thanksgiving on different dates. Finally, the officially date was changed to the fourth Thursday in November. On December 26, 1941, Congress passed a bill that made Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

The earliest Thanksgiving can occur is November 22 and the latest is November 28.

The Farmer’s Almanac also says it is important to note that it was not Lincoln or anyone else for that matter, who declared the Friday after Thanksgiving as the national day of shopping, aka Black Friday.

If you are in the UK, you might wish to know something about William Strickland, the man who introduced turkeys to England. If you are a bit curious, check out the link below to a post from my Every Woman Dreams blog. In the UK, turkeys are often found on a Christmas menu. Why might you ask? We can blame that particular fact on one William Strickland, a 16th Century navigator and explorer, who supposedly, in 1596, brought turkeys back to his home in Yorkshire from America.