Thanksgiving is a grand time of the year

I have come to believe that giving thanks is one of the healthiest, most fitting and most life strengthening things that people can do. So, even though in a way Thanksgiving begins to close out my favorite season of the year, I still welcome and prize the arrival of Thanksgiving Day. Of course it is not that I think of late November as the time to be thankful and of other times as times when it is OK not to be thankful — I believe in being thankful every day and in all seasons. Just as it is good to observe a Mothers Day and a Fathers Day, while we honor our mothers and fathers each and every day, I regard a widely shared season of Thanksgiving as one of the finest lifeaffirming and wholesome celebrations that we can observe as a people and as a nation.

We in the U.S. have observed Thanksgiving as an annual national holiday ever since Civil War Days, when President Lincoln signed legislation designating the last Thursday of November as an annual national day of thanksgiving. The date to be observed was modified in 1939 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, resetting the time to the fourth Thursday of No- vember. Interestingly, commercial interests played a part in resetting of the date, in that when the last Thursday of November fell on a fifth Thursday, that put Thanksgiving so close to Christmas that merchants were squeezed for time to get in their Christmas promotions.

So I am noting that it is no new thing that our society can hardly wait to get through Thanksgiving in order to get on with Christmas shopping. Today, we have this thing called Black Friday, when, supposedly, Thanksgiving is quickly ended, and Christmas shopping can begin in earnest. But many stores can’t wait for Black Friday, and will be opening on Thanksgiving Day. That way, shoppers can hurry through their Thanksgiving meal, and get right on with the shopping.

In the “old days,” I don’t recall our being quite so in a hurry to get into the Christmas shopping, but even in the 1940s, during the war years, there was already pressure from the commercial Christmas to rush through the Thanksgiving celebration. Even though I write a great deal about our “Now” as compared to back “Then,” I try to be careful not to idealize the old days too much. Some of the negatives that we have in our society now we already had back then. The “old days” that I remember were not all warm and fuzzy and great. Not everybody back then was virtuous and high principled. There was evil in the world, there was violence and war, and there was hatred, and prejudice and greed and self-righteousness and thanklessness, even back in the “good old days.”

Nevertheless, I believe thanksgiving, including our official national Thanksgiving holiday, is a key activity by which all humanity can reach for better days in the life of the world. The practice of observing times of thanksgiving and praise to God goes way back in the history of our race. The Old Testament Scriptures, and especially the Psalms, are full of expressions of thanks and praise to God. The followers of Christ in the New Testament were often challenged to live in the spirit of thanksgiving and praise. To learn to real- ly appreciate the blessings we receive, and to acknowledge the source of our blessings in the grace and providence of our Creator, is, I believe, a key to achieving a happier personal and family life, and key to our forming a healthy sense of community life and of life as a nation.

Whether we are looking at 2015 or back in the 1940s, people face challenges in keeping the trappings and distractions of the season from diluting the focus and meaning of the celebrations. How much of giving thanks happens in our Thanksgiving Day? Is Thanksgiving mainly food and football and a mad pursuit of bargains? How bountifully must we be blessed before we can appreciate how we are blessed and be moved to express our thankfulness to God who labors to bring grace and love and joy and peace into the lives of all peoples on earth?!

••• Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.