Holidays: Living Tradition

[TheBigDog]

This thread is dedicated to holidays. Post em as they happen, and help educate us about the traditions you celebrate around the world.

 

Today is Thanksgiving in America. Thanksgiving was first celebrated in 1619 at the settlement of Berkley Hundred. It was celebrated on the day of their arrival and had been preplanned. There were various other celebrations that happened but that was the first.

 

The settlement of Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock held their first of many Thanksgiving celebrations in 1630. This is the stereotypical thanksgiving that we remember and celebrate in the US. I have the pleasure of sitting through at least one Thanksgiving school performance every year with the kids dressed as Pilgrims and Indians and singing songs. My youngest is in kindergarten and has been telling me the story of Thanksgiving all week, and is for the first time really aware of the holiday and the traditions behind it.

 

In 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first national day of thanksgiving, and encouraged the various states to play along. They repeated this every year until they were supplanted by the ratified Constitution and the elected government of the United States.

 

In 1789, George Washington declared the first Thanksgiving Holiday, but it was one of only two that he declared as President (1795 was the second). This on-and-off tradition continued until the Civil War, when President Lincoln declared the final Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving Day. By that time at least 25 states were celebrating Thanksgiving Days of their own on various dates. This tradition began in 1863 and we have had an annual Thanksgiving Day since then.

 

Thanksgiving was declared ceremoniously by the President every year and was an official celebration, but was not recognized by law. In 1939 President Roosevelt decided to give an extra week of shopping before Christmas to help spur the recovery from the depression. He declared Thanksgiving one week early. This caused a great deal of confusion, with calendars being printed well in advance of the proclamation being made. The change of date was followed by about half the states. If you ever watch the Bing Crosby movie Holiday Inn you see a joke about this with an animated turkey running from one week to another. Texas celebrated it two consecutive Thursdays. The confusion continued until 1941 when the Congress declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, essentially finding middle ground between the tradition and the Roosevelt proclamations. It was signed into law on Thanksgiving Day, Nov 26 1941.

 

Aside from proclaiming the day of Thanksgiving (despite it being an official holiday it is still a ceremonial proclamation), the President also has the duty of pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey. There is actually no record of when this tradition began, with the legend being that President Lincoln did it for the first time instead of killing his son's pet turkey for dinner.

 

B) Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! :shrug:

 

Bill

[Queso]

B)

 

The school taught // played out version of the Thanksgiving story is so warped.

Does anyone else feel like Thanksgiving is a day of lies and genocide?

Yes....I get with my family and they eat turkey and it's weird and lovely and disgusting and wonderful to be with them

but me and my recently discovered ~1/4 american indian blood can't help but be pissed off by all of this.

Who knows the truth about what really happened?

I'm sure it's a lot more complex and diverse than we think.

All I know is I am both.

I am both!

I am both the american indian and the desperate pilgrim, fused together through generations of sex.

Very very strange now that I think about it.

 

Today is such a weird day.

 

Whether the Indian provoked the white people,

or they were forced and raped,

or manipulated with words

or let

or peacefully tried

or walked away------- I don't know. I wasn't there.

 

I do know that the desperate spirit of atlantic Caucasian has totally trampled over these grounds and all the living things that inhabit it.

 

Like a wave of stagnant evolutionary emulsion.

 

It's great that people get together on Thanksgiving. I'm glad it has evolved into that. (Unlike christmas...JESUS CHRIST! haha)

 

So, for thanksgiving, Orbsycli dines on divine peyot in remembrance of the soft quiet American wind without the robot farts, or the gusts of transportation.

 

In and out.

Back and forth.

[freeztar]

:hyper:

 

Yeah, I see Thanksgiving as a day for turkey haters (or lovers, depending on how you look at it). We should call it sad turkey day. :shrug:

 

I too have a suspicion that we have recieved a watered down version of the origins behind the tradition. Even if it were completely true, doesn't the fact that we annihilated those people shortly afterwards kinda dissolve the whole "peace, let's come together as one and have a festive meal together" thing? B)

[Cedars]

but me and my recently discovered ~1/4 american indian blood can't help but be pissed off by all of this.

 

If your able to pursue this and (depending on what nation), you may find yourself with free health care and education money.

 

A friend who is 1/4 ojibway qualifies for this. Her kids (1/8) get sliding scale health care and qualify for education loans.

 

My ex hit a dead end with his pursuit of being recognised (choctaw). When his mother was born, the doctor put white as nationality in an attempt to give the kid a better life (she was 1/4). Due to a fire in the records center, the information showing geneology was lost at dads or grandpas point of origin (I cant remember which).

 

Different nations have different rules on proof and what qualifies. Its gotten much harder since gambling was legalized around here and some nations have changed their benefit plans. For example, some tribes give a casino check to 1/4 some dont, and others have changed the rules so if you were on the tribal records before [insert date] you receive benefits, and after that date, you dont, but you are recognised as part of that tribe/nation.

 

Then there are the still very poor nations who cannot offer additional benefits beyond what the Feds (and their rules and paper work) offer.

[Queso]

wow I didn't know that....