Celebrating Thanksgiving on November 23, 2023
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Celebrating Thanksgiving on November 23, 2023



Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in the United States to celebrate the Colonists first successful harvest with their Native American Allies. It is celebrated on the 3rd Thursday of November each year. This is a time to celebrate with family, food and in many cases, football.


It is based on a historical tradition of celebrating a good and plentiful harvest, often symbolized by the coruncopia. Many children's schools will also do plays that reenact the first Thanksgiving in celebration of coming together between cultures.


According to The History Channel,

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as America’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days.

Even though the story of the first Thanksgiving shows a sense of harmony between early settlers and the Native Americans, often this was not the case. This creates some controversy in celebrating this holiday today.


Although there were many different Thanksgivings celebrated in early American history, each feast was declared independently. There were some states that would celebrate yearly, while others would not. It was not adopted as a formal holiday until during the Civil War.


History continues:

In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale—author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians, earning her the nickname the “Mother of Thanksgiving.”
Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.”

When Thanksgiving was first enacted, it was with the intentions of bringing people together, and ceasing division. The idea is that we have more in common than we have that separates us. Creating this holiday is to mourn what we have lost as well as celebrating all that we do have.


Each Thanksgiving, we commemorate all the goodness that we have in our lives, and share a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the many blessings that life has to offer each of us. This is based on the earlier tradition of celebrating a good harvest that would last through the cold winter days.


Gratitude has many benefits


If you sit around the table with family at Thanksgiving and all take a turn saying what you are grateful for, it can have a powerful positive effect of bringing everyone together. It helps you think of all the good in the past year, and to celebrate victories together. Gratitude for family and friends is also a powerful force that provides closeness during holiday gatherings.


For Thankgsiving 2021 I did a roundup with some other bloggers, and asked everyone what they were grateful for. They all had some lovely things to say:



Hearing what everyone else is celebrating can help you to get thinking about all of the beautiful blessings in your own life, too.


In addition to practicing gratitude at Thanksgiving, there is so much to be grateful for all year long. The more you can incorporate gratitude into your life, the happier you will become on a daily basis, and you will have a much more positive mindset.





Gratitude can actually rewire the connections in your brain and make you happier. In addition, gratitude can assist with your manifestations if you are using the Law of Attraction.


I wish you and your family all a beautiful and blessed Thanksgiving! I hope that you have a lovely time celebrating, and that your life is overflowing with blessings to be grateful for!



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