The Promise of a New Life: Post 1 in a Thanksgiving Series

A dreaded time with family that you want to avoid?  The best day where you eat and eat with no thought of calories?  Another day off work?  What is this whole “Thanksgiving thing” about anyway?  A day where we celebrate the white man taking over the red man’s home?  A Christian fiction story?  What are the facts of Thanksgiving?

Confession:  My favorite holiday is Christmas.  My second favorite holiday is the next one that is coming up.  So, right now, my second favorite holiday is:  Thanksgiving!  Seriously, I really really do love Thanksgiving!  In my teaching days, I worked at a school named Master’s Academy.  If I could insert a little commercial here, Master’s Academy held an annual Thanksgiving celebration that was out of this world!  I have absolutely no clue how they were able to pull the whole thing off.  You are going to think that I am exaggerating and I would also, if I had not experienced the day first hand.  The class would file outside to a village that was set up on school grounds.  Teachers and volunteers were dressed as Pilgrims and Indians, not like Disney Pocahontas and John Smith but the real deal.  Somehow there was always a man that had guns from this time period and he would give a demonstration, there were hard biscuits and dried meat, animal skins….it was amazing!  The closest thing to traveling back in time that I have ever experienced.  Each year, I wish that my daughter could experience that Thanksgiving celebration.  But from it, I learned a true love of Thanksgiving that I hope to pass to her and I hope will be contagious.

Years ago, I found a jewel, “Thanksgiving, A Time to Remember” by Barbara Rainey.  Most of my facts come from this book.  I can not recommend it enough!  I am going to do something here, that I do not usually do on my blog, I am going to site big portions from this book:

“The Mayflower, a small wooden ship with billowing sails, was the vessel God used to bring a group of Christian believers to an unseen land far over the Atlantic.  These Christian men and women, called Pilgrims, believed that God was leading them to establish a new community where they could worship freely…When the Mayflower finally left England, on the 6th of September, crowded on board were 102 passengers, including 33 children…The food was terrible – brine soaked beef, pork, and fish and stale, hard biscuits, which often were full of insects.  The rats living on board helped themselves to the same food supplies…The rooms for passengers were crowded and mainly below deck.  Conditions were miserable:  cramped quarters, seasick people vomiting into pails – if they were able to find one in time, no sanitary toilets; the hatches were sealed off because of constant storms, and so the passengers were unable to get fresh air.  A foul mixture of odors grew in such an environment…After 97 days at sea, the Pilgrims caught a glimpse of their destination, ‘La-a-nd, ho!'”

This series will take a quick look at some facts about Thanksgiving, with of course some followup and comments from me.  I hope you will chime in with your own views.

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