We Have So Much To Be Thankful For

Before we get to this episode of The Captain's America: Third Watch with Matt Bruce, I’d like to say a couple words about rushing through life to dispense with Thanksgiving to get to the marketed holiday of Christmas.<br /><br />History has it that New England and Virginia colonists originally celebrated days of fasting as well as days of Thanksgiving, thanking God for blessings such as harvest, ship landings, and the end of droughts. These were observed through church services and then accompanied by feasts and communal gatherings afterwards.<br /><br />The event the Americans commonly called the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October of 1621. The feast lasted for three days and was attended not only by the colonists and the pilgrims but by Native Americans – in peace.<br /><br />Presidents from Washington to Jefferson to Lincoln to Grant all the way through Roosevelt issued proclamations for a day of Thanksgiving but it wasn't until 1942 onwards that Thanksgiving, by an act of Congress, receive the permanent observation date the fourth Thursday in November.<br /><br />Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. It isn't observed in Europe. It isn't observed down in South America. It isn't observed in Asia. It's uniquely American. That's something we should be celebrating. <br /><br />And it also makes us think of something that's higher than ourselves; a higher power than ourselves. That we rush through Thanksgiving because Madison Avenue and the marketplace demands that we buy things for Christmas...we've really got to stop this.<br /><br />You think about it. If you ask anybody who is in there end of days; at the end of their life what they wish for they always say they wish they had a little bit more time with family, with friends, with people that they loved. That's what Thanksgiving is. It's a day to give thanks for what we have, who we have, who we are.<br /><br />But we want to rush through it so that we can make sure we buy everything, so