Part of the problem is that Thanksgiving is being forgotten as people focus on sales. Black Friday has crept into Thursday, and even if you manage yo stay home, Black Friday commercials are all over the TV interrupting football or holiday movies. The Thursday paper is larger than any Sunday edition, and it draws people away from family to peruse ads.
People gobble down the meal, and start cleaning so as t get someone else. No matter how good the food is, and mine was great as my partner does a great bird, the holiday atmosphere is just not there.
I have to take some responsibility for this and I am planning for a festive feast next year,
It's funny that we celebrate Thanksgiving with a focus on the Pilgrims/Puritans at Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. They did not even celebrate the first Thanksgiving, and retailers would be shocked to know that celebrating Christmas was against the law. That's right, no Black Friday as there is no Christmas.
Others competing for the title are residents of Plymouth in 1621, Jamestown, Virginia in 1610, and Maine in 1607.
However, they are all Johnny-come-latelys. El Paso, Texas lays a claim that dates to 1598, and Thanksgiving was celebrated 56 years before Plymouth Rock in Saint Augustine Florida after Spanish explorers arrived n September 8, 1565.
I suppose we would have to agree that Thanksgiving is really a Southern thing.
Whoever was first really doesn't matter. Just as Lincoln's proclamation establishing Thanksgiving in 1863 supplanted Evacuation Day, which was celebrated annually on November 25th, there will be a time in the future when Thanksgiving is forgotten. Probably when Black Friday becomes Black Wednesday.
