Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all our neighbors in Ashton Wood!

The following remembrance was contributed by our neighbor, Mary Phillips.

---

Soon we will be celebrating the holiday of Thanksgiving, which began so long ago in Massachusetts.  We think of it as similar to the Thanksgiving we have today but it was very different.   The Pilgrims and the Puritans had journeyed from England to escape religious persecution, but for different reasons.  The Pilgrims wanted to separate from the Church of England; the Puritans wanted to purify it.  After a year of living among the Wampanoag Indians, who befriended them through a leader known as Squanto.  Squanto spoke English as a result of imprisonment in England.  Whether or not they gave thanks is unknown.  They ate simpler food than we eat today.  It was not thought of as Thanksgiving, but rather as harvest.

The first proclamation of Thanksgiving was made by George Washington in 1789.  It has been celebrated as a national holiday ever since 1865 when proclaimed so by President Abraham Lincoln.  It wasn’t until Dec. 26th, 1941 that President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law and fixing the day as the fourth Thursday of November.

WE will soon be giving thanks ourselves.  Despite many bad things happening in the world, we have many things for which we are thankful.  Have you ever kept a Gratitude Journal?  It’s an interesting experience.  You find that you have so many things for which you are thankful that you run out of room.  I finally had to set up categories such as Family, the Natural World, Friends, Health, Well Being, Gifts and Talents, Unexpected Surprises, Trips,  and on and on.  Once you get started, you are amazed.

I like to write poems of Thanksgiving   Here is one that I wrote

Thank you God

By Mary Phillips

God who sprinkled stars through space

God who set the earth in space

God who stretched the oceans wide

God who’s always by my side

God who carved the mountainside

Mountains that will long abide

God who caused the flowers to grow

And showers them with rain and snow

This is God I’ve come to know

This is God I’ve come to know

God who clearly loves us so.

To whom all my thanksgivings go.

I’ve written many poems about God, because He is the source of all things for which we are truly thankful.  Happy Thanksgiving. Have a  great one   !!!