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Show Thoughts From The Garden... by Tonya LeMone The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. H.U. Westermayer l Y CO - - i Vrf - . ! It" ' ' ' - -; ' N 1 ' ' M -v. ' !. . , r I. v ,f - Ijt-. i -It r ' ' :'t . -v i-- -, - i , I "i. .. 21 - r- a - - - - J The origin of Thanksgiving in America started in the 1600's as the Pilgrims gave thanks for surviving the cold and near starvation of the first year in America. For three days they feasted and thanked their God and celebrated with their new Indian friends for helping them to survive their first year. We continue to celebrate this day of thankfulness after many government declarations were made as to the day and the reason to celebrate. Thanks to the persistence of Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale in 1941 Congress declared the fourth Thursday of November as the annual day of celebration and Thanksgiving in America. This last Monday was the annual celebration pf Thanksgiving in Canada, unlike the Americans tradition of remembering the Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest. Our daughter is dating a young man, who plays ice-hockey for the University of Utah, and he happens to be from Canada (that's a given... Canada and ice-hockey) and was feeling a little homesick knowing his family was gathering together to celebrate and he was not with them. To ease his homesickness we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving for Teren Turner, the ultimate Canadian... Eh! Canada has the traditional dinner just as we do. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, veggies, rolls and, of course, homemade pumpkin pie. It was so fun to gather together almost the entire family and celebrate with Teren on an unexpected day of Thanksgiving. After our meal I asked Teren what is different about our Thanksgiving in America and his Thanksgiving in Canada. He said the food is pretty much the same, of course his mum's cooking was missed, but the big difference is the celebration of the harvest, not the recognition of the sacrifice those Pilgrims made in a new land. When our Canadian friends gather as a family to eat their Thanksgiving feast, they eat right in the very field where the combine is still hard at work. The men jump off the combine and take the time to give a prayer of thanks, then eat and go right back to work, after all it is harvesting season and the combine is working around the clock. The one thing that impressed me the most, however, was the sincere thankfulness from Teren to me for helping to ease the homesickness he was experiencing and that we wanted to celebrate with his homeland the thankfulness of a successful harvest here in our homeland. As we celebrate Thanksgiving, this year especially, I hope we will retain the original gratefulness to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers, and remember that it is to those early and courageous Pilgrims that we owe not only the traditional Thanksgiving holiday, but also the concepts of self-government, the "hard-work" ethic, self-reliant self-reliant communities, and devout religious faith. And a greater remembrance, as Canada does, for the successful harvest we are now enjoying. See you in the Garden |