Happy Thanksgiving !
A depiction of the Thanksgiving feast in
Plymouth in 1621. JLG Ferris, c. 1912.
GIVE THANKS !
I am thankful that I am healthy. Health is the most precious gift from God.
I am thankful for my family, for the daily laughter and weekly arguments.
I am thankful for the gift of technology,for allowing me to get in touch with friends and family more quickly and easily.
I am thankful for the life that I have and the daily challenges and opportunities I encounter.
I am thankful to know and/or have known the people in my life, both my family and my friends and I know I can never find other people like them.
I am thankful to be living in a wonderful country like America .I am also thankful for the memories that I have and keep,
I am thankful for Good Health that the Almighty God has given to all my loved ones and my family members and i am still praying the same for the coming years to come.
I am thankful for God's daily provision for me so that i can live a life of comfort and joy.
I am thankful for family and friends who are always there for me through good and bad times.
I am grateful for everything and everyone in my life. My family and friends fill me with love and I am blessed for it.
Tuyen Dinh
President Abraham Lincoln
Washington, DC…On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789, as an official holiday of “sincere and humble thanks.” The nation then celebrated its first Thanksgiving under its new Constitution. On October 3, 1863, President Lincoln made the traditional Thanksgiving celebration a nationwide holiday to be commemorated each year on the fourth Thursday of November. In the midst of a bloody Civil War, President Lincoln issued a Presidential Proclamation in which he enumerated the blessings of the American people and called upon his countrymen to "set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise."
-VIDEO :The First Thanksgiving Story
The Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers were the first English settlers of the Plymouth Colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The colony was established in 1620.
The Embarkation of the Pilgrims (1857) by American painter Robert Walter Weir at the United States Capitol in Washington, DC
-Thanksgiving Day (Jour de l'Action de grâce in Canadian French) is a national holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Several other places around the world observe similar celebrations. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. Thanksgiving has its historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, and has long been celebrated in a secular manner as well.
History
Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests and at other times.The Thanksgiving holiday's history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.
In the English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII and in reaction to the large number of religious holidays on the Catholic calendar. Before 1536 there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when people were required to attend church and forego work and sometimes pay for expensive celebrations. The 1536 reforms reduced the number of Church holidays to 27, but some Puritans, the radical reformers of their age, wished to completely eliminate all Church holidays, including Christmas and Easter. The holidays were to be replaced by specially called Days of Fasting or Days of Thanksgiving, in response to events that the Puritans viewed as acts of special providence. Unexpected disasters or threats of judgement from on high called for Days of Fasting. Special blessings, viewed as coming from God, called for Days of Thanksgiving. For example, Days of Fasting were called on account of drought in 1611, floods in 1613, and plagues in 1604 and 1622. Days of Thanksgiving were called following the victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588 and following the deliverance of Queen Anne in 1705. An unusual annual Day of Thanksgiving began in 1606 following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and developed into Guy Fawkes Day
In the United States
Main article: Thanksgiving (United States)
In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly, but not universally, traced to a poorly documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden. In later years, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.
Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress,each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".
In modern times the President of the United States, in addition to issuing a proclamation, will "pardon" a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.
Debate about first celebrations in the United States
The traditional representation of where the first Thanksgiving was held in the United States has often been a subject of boosterism and debate, though the debate is often confused by mixing up the ideas of a Thanksgiving holiday celebration and a Thanksgiving religious service. According to author James Baker, this debate is a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense".
Local boosters in Virginia, Florida, and Texas promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land.—Jeremy Bangs
These claims include an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598, as well as thanksgiving feasts in the Virginia Colony. Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida argue that the earliest Thanksgiving service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565, in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.A day for Thanksgiving services was codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619.
According to Baker, "Historically, none of these had any influence over the evolution of the modern United State's holiday. The American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence.
On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had used a presidential proclamation to try to achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would give the country an economic boost
On December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had used a presidential proclamation to try to achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would give the country an economic boost
Thanksgiving History
Thanksgiving is a particularly American holiday. The word evokes images of football, family reunions, roasted turkey with stuffing, pumpkin pie and, of course, the Pilgrims and Wampanoag, the acknowledged founders of the feast. But was it always so? Read on to find out...
This article explores the development of our modern holiday. For information on food at the First Thanksgiving, go to Partakers of our Plenty. For additional children's resources on Thanksgiving, you might want to view Scholastic's Virtual Field Trip to Plimoth Plantation, explore our Online Learning Center, or visit our Homework Help page. If you'd like to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, please visit our Thanksgiving Dining and Special Events page.
Giving thanks for the Creator’s gifts had always been a part of Wampanoag daily life. From ancient times, Native People of North America have held ceremonies to give thanks for successful harvests, for the hope of a good growing season in the early spring, and for other good fortune such as the birth of a child. Giving thanks was, and still is, the primary reason for ceremonies or celebrations.
As with Native traditions in America, celebrations - complete with merrymaking and feasting - in England and throughout Europe after a successful crop are as ancient as the harvest-time itself. In 1621, when their labors were rewarded with a bountiful harvest after a year of sickness and scarcity, the Pilgrims gave thanks to God and celebrated His bounty in the Harvest Home tradition with feasting and sport (recreation). To these people of strong Christian faith, this was not merely a revel; it was also a joyous outpouring of gratitude.
The arrival of the Pilgrims and Puritans brought new Thanksgiving traditions to the American scene. Today’s national Thanksgiving celebration is a blend of two traditions: the New England custom of rejoicing after a successful harvest, based on ancient English harvest festivals; and the Puritan Thanksgiving, a solemn religious observance combining prayer and feasting.
Florida, Texas, Maine and Virginia each declare itself the site of the First Thanksgiving and historical documents support the various claims. Spanish explorers and other English Colonists celebrated religious services of thanksgiving years before Mayflower arrived. However, few people knew about these events until the 20th century. They were isolated celebrations, forgotten long before the establishment of the American holiday, and they played no role in the evolution of Thanksgiving. But as James W. Baker states in his book, Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday, "despite disagreements over the details" the 3-day event in Plymouth in the fall of 1621 was "the historical birth of the American Thanksgiving holiday."
So how did the Pilgrims and Wampanoag come to be identified with the First Thanksgiving?
Many people felt that this family holiday should be a national celebration, especially Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book. In 1827, she began a campaign to reinstate the holiday after the model of the first Presidents. She publicly petitioned several Presidents to make it an annual event. Sarah Josepha Hale’s efforts finally succeeded in 1863, when she was able to convince President Lincoln that a national Thanksgiving might serve to unite a war-torn country. The President declared two national Thanksgivings that year, one for August 6 celebrating the victory at Gettysburg and a second for the last Thursday in November.
After 1890, representations of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag began to reflect a shift of interest to the 1621 harvest celebration. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Pilgrims and the Thanksgiving holiday were used to teach children about American freedom and how to be good citizens. Each November, in classrooms across the country, students participated in Thanksgiving pageants, sang songs about Thanksgiving, and built log cabins to represent the homes of the Pilgrims. Immigrant children also learned that all Americans ate turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The last lesson was especially effective with the recollections of most immigrant children in the 20th century including stories of rushing home after school in November to beg their parents to buy and roast a turkey for a holiday dinner.
TURKEY AND ALL THE TRIMMINGS
PRIMARY SOURCES
HARVEST HOME OR THANKSGIVING?
In a letter from “E.W.” (Edward Winslow) to a friend in England, he says: “And God be praised, we had a good increase…. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling that so we might after a special manner rejoice together….” Winslow continues, “These things I thought good to let you understand… that you might on our behalf give God thanks who hath dealt so favourably with us.”
In 1622, without his approval, Winslow’s letter was printed in a pamphlet that historians commonly call Mourt’s Relation. This published description of the First Thanksgiving was lost during the Colonial period. It was rediscovered in Philadelphia around 1820. Antiquarian Alexander Young included the entire text in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (1841). Reverend Young saw a similarity between his contemporary American Thanksgiving and the 1621 Harvest Feast. In the footnotes that accompanied Winslow’s letter, Young writes, “This was the first Thanksgiving, the harvest festival of New England. On this occasion they no doubt feasted on the wild turkey as well as venison.”
PURITAN HOLIDAY
The American Thanksgiving also has its origin in the faith practices of Puritan New England, where strict Calvinist doctrine sanctioned only the Sabbath, fast days and thanksgivings as religious holidays or “holy days.” To the Puritans, a true “thanksgiving” was a day of prayer and pious humiliation, thanking God for His special Providence. Auspicious events, such as the sudden ending of war, drought or pestilence, might inspire a thanksgiving proclamation. It was like having an extra Sabbath during the week. Fasts and thanksgivings never fell on a Sunday. In the early 1600s, they were not annual events. Simultaneously instituted in Plymouth, Connecticut and Massachusetts, Thanksgiving became a regular event by the middle of the 17th century and it was proclaimed each autumn by the individual Colonies.
The holiday changed as the dogmatic Puritans of the 17th century evolved into the 18th century’s more cosmopolitan Yankees. By the 1700s, the emotional significance of the New England family united around a dinner table overshadowed the civil and religious importance of Thanksgiving. Carried by Yankee emigrants moving westward and the popular press, New England’s holiday traditions would spread to the rest of the nation.
NATIONAL FEAST
The Continental Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving in 1777. A somber event, it specifically recommended “that servile labor and such recreations (although at other times innocent) may be unbecoming the purpose of this appointment [and should] be omitted on so solemn an occasion.”
Presidents Washington, Adams and Monroe proclaimed national Thanksgivings, but the custom fell out of use by 1815, after which the celebration of the holiday was limited to individual state observances. By the 1850s, almost every state and territory celebrated Thanksgiving.
Many people felt that this family holiday should be a national celebration, especially Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book. In 1827, she began a campaign to reinstate the holiday after the model of the first Presidents. She publicly petitioned several Presidents to make it an annual event. Sarah Josepha Hale’s efforts finally succeeded in 1863, when she was able to convince President Lincoln that a national Thanksgiving might serve to unite a war-torn country. The President declared two national Thanksgivings that year, one for August 6 celebrating the victory at Gettysburg and a second for the last Thursday in November.
Neither Lincoln nor his successors, however, made the holiday a fixed annual event. A President still had to proclaim Thanksgiving each year, and the last Thursday in November became the customary date. In a controversial move, Franklin Delano Roosevelt lengthened the Christmas shopping season by declaring Thanksgiving for the next-to-the-last Thursday in November. Two years later, in 1941, Congress responded by permanently establishing the holiday as the fourth Thursday in the month.
THE PILGRIM AND WAMPANOAG ROLE
The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag were not particularly identified with Thanksgiving until about 1900, though interest in the Pilgrims as historic figures began shortly before the American Revolution.
With the publication of Longfellow’s best-selling poem The Courtship of Miles Standish (1848) and the recovery of Governor Bradford’s lost manuscript Of Plimoth Plantation (1855), public interest in the Pilgrims and Wampanoag grew just as Thanksgiving became nationally important. Until the third quarter of the 19th century, music, literature and popular art concentrated on the Pilgrims’ landing at Plymouth Rock and their first encounters with Native People on Cape Cod.
After 1890, representations of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag began to reflect a shift of interest to the 1621 harvest celebration. By the beginning of the 20th century, the Pilgrims and the Thanksgiving holiday were used to teach children about American freedom and how to be good citizens. Each November, in classrooms across the country, students participated in Thanksgiving pageants, sang songs about Thanksgiving, and built log cabins to represent the homes of the Pilgrims. Immigrant children also learned that all Americans ate turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The last lesson was especially effective with the recollections of most immigrant children in the 20th century including stories of rushing home after school in November to beg their parents to buy and roast a turkey for a holiday dinner.
TURKEY AND ALL THE TRIMMINGS
The classic Thanksgiving menu of turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and root vegetables is based on New England fall harvests. In the 19th century, as the holiday spread across the country, local cooks modified the menu both by choice (“this is what we like to eat”) and by necessity (“this is what we have to eat”). Today, many Americans delight in giving regional produce, recipes and seasonings a place on the Thanksgiving table. In New Mexico, chiles and other southwestern flavors are used in stuffing, while on the Chesapeake Bay, the local favorite, crab, often shows up as a holiday appetizer or as an ingredient in dressing. In Minnesota, the turkey might be stuffed with wild rice, and in Washington State, locally grown hazelnuts are featured in stuffing and desserts. In Indiana, persimmon puddings are a favorite Thanksgiving dessert, and in Key West, key lime pie joins pumpkin pie on the holiday table. Some specialties have even become ubiquitous regional additions to local Thanksgiving menus; in Baltimore, for instance, it is common to find sauerkraut alongside the Thanksgiving turkey.
Most of these regional variations have remained largely a local phenomenon, a means of connecting with local harvests and specialty foods. However this is not true of influential southern Thanksgiving trends that had a tremendous impact on the 20th-century Thanksgiving menu.
Corn, sweet potatoes, and pork form the backbone of traditional southern home cooking, and these staple foods provided the main ingredients in southern Thanksgiving additions like ham, sweet potato casseroles, pies and puddings, and corn bread dressing. Other popular southern contributions include ambrosia (a layered fruit salad traditionally made with citrus fruits and coconut; some more recent recipes use mini-marshmallows and canned fruits), biscuits, a host of vegetable casseroles, and even macaroni and cheese. Unlike the traditional New England menu, with its mince, apple and pumpkin pie dessert course, southerners added a range and selection of desserts unknown in northern dining rooms, including regional cakes, pies, puddings, and numerous cobblers. Many of these Thanksgiving menu additions spread across the country with relocating southerners. Southern cookbooks (of which there are hundreds) and magazines also helped popularize many of these dishes in places far beyond their southern roots. Some, like sweet potato casserole, pecan pie, and corn bread dressing, have become as expected on the Thanksgiving table as turkey and cranberry sauce.
THANKSGIVING
If there is one day each year when food and family take center stage, it is Thanksgiving. It is a holiday about “going home” with all the emotional content those two words imply. The Sunday following Thanksgiving is always the busiest travel day of the year in the United States. Each day of the long Thanksgiving weekend, more than 10 million people take to the skies. Another 40 million Americans drive 100 miles or more to have Thanksgiving dinner. And the nation’s railways teem with travelers going home for the holiday.
Despite modern-age turmoil—and perhaps, even more so, because of it—gathering together in grateful appreciation for a Thanksgiving celebration with friends and family is a deeply meaningful and comforting annual ritual to most Americans. The need to connect with loved ones and to express our gratitude is at the heart of all this feasting, prayerful thanks, recreation, and nostalgia for a simpler time. And somewhere in the bustling activity of every November's Thanksgiving is the abiding National memory of a moment in Plymouth, nearly 400 years ago, when two distinct cultures, on the brink of profound and irrevocable change, shared an autumn feast.
PRIMARY SOURCES
Very little is known about the 1621 event in Plymouth that is the model for our Thanksgiving. The only references to the event are reprinted below:
“And God be praised we had a good increase… Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”
Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation: D.B. Heath, ed. Applewood Books. Cambridge, 1986. p 82
“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which is place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation: S.E. Morison, ed. Knopf. N.Y., 1952. p 90
Family
This Thanksgiving, as you roast the turkey,
Don't forget to thank God for your family.
The times you have spent in their company,
Will bring to smile to your face in their memory.
Thank God for the people with who you share your dinner,
Then promise to respect and love them forever.
May you have a Blessed Thanksgiving.
What happens when you cross Thanksgiving with Hanukkah?
The coincidence this year of Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah is very unusual - it last happened in 1888. But in a way it's fitting, as American Jews have been embracing Thanksgiving for more than two centuries.
By the time the first of eight candles in Jewish menorah were lit on Wednesday evening for the start of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, the country was largely closed down for Thursday's Thanksgiving holiday.
According to the most commonly cited calculation, not only has this not happened for 125 years, but it won't happen again for more than 70,000 years.
That is because the Jewish calendar is shifting in relation to the Gregorian calendar very, very slowly... at a rate of four days every 1,000 years.
This year's alignment has given rise to a curious new amalgam: Thanksgivukkah.
The term was coined, and trademarked, by a marketing specialist called Dana Gitell, who teamed up with an online Jewish gift shop to sell T-shirts and other memorabilia.
Among the items on sale are a "menurkey" - a menorah shaped like a turkey - designed by a nine-year-old New Yorker, whose family say they have sold thousands at $50 a piece.
There's a Facebook page with more than 13,000 "likes", a #Thanksgivukkah hashtag onTwitter, and a large number ofYouTube music videos of varying quality.
Perhaps the most common online discussion topic is food, and ideas for "mash-up" recipes that combine festive delicacies from both sides - from potato latkes with cranberry applesauce to rye pumpkin pie.
All this has brought to the surface the longstanding affection for Thanksgiving among American Jews.
"American Jews love Thanksgiving and celebrate it every year with the rest of America," says Gitell.
Whereas some Jewish families might not take part in Halloween or Christmas, Gitell says she doesn't know any Jewish family that wouldn't celebrate Thanksgiving. "I think that Thanksgiving is generally considered kosher by all Jews," she says.
This is partly because Thanksgiving is generally seen as a secular, national holiday in which people honour family and community, regardless of ethnic group or religious denomination.
It is also popularly associated with pilgrims giving thanks for their new life in America, where they could practise their religion freely.
In that respect, some see similarities with the story of Hanukkah, which celebrates the miraculous lighting of the menorah in Jerusalem's Holy Temple after the victory of the Maccabees against the Syrians in the 2nd Century BC.
Though several rabbis have expressed reservations about Thanksgiving, and one even stated his opposition to eating kosher turkey, Rabbi Levi Shemtov, director of the Washington office of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad movement, says there is "nothing adverse to anything Jewish or contradictory to Judaism" in Thanksgiving.
"For that celebration to happen - as we are in our religious calendar celebrating our own religious freedom, as it was achieved in ancient times - makes it only that more emphatic," he says.
US history has also been deployed to firm up the links, right back to the use of rabbinic texts used by Puritans to thank God for their safe arrival in America.
After George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide Thanksgiving celebration in 1789, the preacher at New York's oldest congregation, Shearith Israel, gave a Thanksgiving sermon and instructed his congregation to observe the holiday.
The service was unprecedented in the history of Jewish liturgy and prayer, says Allan Nadler, a professor of Jewish studies at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
Greeting cards are among this year's Thanksgivukkah products
"The creation of a Hebrew religious service to commemorate a non-Jewish holiday, a holiday whose origins have nothing to do with the Jews - that's quite remarkable."
Their immediate adoption of Thanksgiving is also an example of how "Jews in general embraced everything American with real fervour", says Nadler.
"The way in which the Jews immigrated to America in the 19th Century - especially the mass wave of Russian Jews at the end of the 19th Century - the speed with they acculturated themselves and rose up economically and intellectually in universities I don't think has any parallel."
Historically, Hanukkah was a relatively minor Jewish festival, but it has gained in significance. Gifts are now often exchanged, especially in North America.
"In America it really became important because of the timing - it fitted into the 'festival season'," says Nadler. "For Jews anxious to have cultural bonds and interfaith bonds with their Christian neighbours, Hanukkah was perfect."
Currently on sabbatical in his native Canada, Nadler says he was taken aback after he arrived in the US as a graduate student and was invited by an orthodox rabbi to a Thanksgiving dinner.
He is "feeling a little forlorn" about missing the holiday this year - but he winces at the commercialisation of Hanukkah. And that goes for Thanksgivukkah, too.
BBC Two HD The Mayflower Pilgrims Behind the Myth (2016) :
CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY
I Am So Thankful :Cảm ơn Trời tôi vẫn còn có :
FOR THE WIFE
WHO SAYS IT'S HOT DOGS TONIGHT, BECAUSE SHE IS HOME WITH ME,
AND NOT OUT WITH SOMEONE ELSE.
Vợ tôi chỉ có hotdogs chiều nay, tôi không phiền cho rằng nàng lười nấu nướng, mà phải vui vì nàng không ra đường cặp kè với ai khác. Cảm ơn Trời, tôi vẫn còn có một người vợ tốt...
FOR THE HUSBAND
WHO IS ON THE SOFA BEING A COUCH POTATO, BECAUSE HE IS HOME WITH ME AND NOT OUT AT THE BARS.
Chồng tôi cứ ngồi salon coi TV, tôi không buồn vì chàng vẫn ở nhà với tôi, thay vì ra bar nhậu nhẹt tốn tiền rồi đánh lộn, say rượu lái xe... Cảm ơn Trời tôi vẫn còn người chồng tốt, vẫn hơn chị bạn tôi đang sống thui thủi một mình.I AM THANKFUL:FOR THE TEENAGER
WHO IS COMPLAINING ABOUT DOING DISHES BECAUSE IT MEANS SHE IS AT HOME, NOT ON THE STREETS.
Con gái tôi cằn nhằn vì bị bắt rửa chén. Tui không phiền vì nó vẫn còn là đứa con ngoan không ra đường lêu lòng.
FOR THE TAXES I PAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM EMPLOYED .
Tôi bị đóng thuế nhiều, nhưng không phiền vì điều đó chứng tỏ là tôi còn việc làm khi kẻ khác phải thất nghiệp.
FOR THE MESS TO CLEAN AFTER A PARTY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY FRIENDS.
Sau buổi party khi các bạn đã ra về tôi phải cực nhọc lau chùi, nhưng vui vì tôi có được nhiều bạn hữu.
FOR THE CLOTHES THAT FIT A LITTLE TOO SNUG
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE ENOUGH TO EAT.
Quần áo lúc này hơi chật, nhưng tôi không than phiền vì điều đó có nghĩa là tôi được no nê sung túc.
FOR MY SHADOW THAT WATCHES ME WORK
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM OUT IN THE SUNSHINE
Đi giữa trời đứng bóng nóng nực tôi không buồn phiền vì được sống thong thả tự do dưới ánh mặt trời.
FOR A LAWN THAT NEEDS MOWING,
WINDOWS THAT NEED CLEANING,
AND GUTTERS THAT NEED FIXING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE A HOME
Sân cỏ cần được cắt, cửa sổ cần được lau chùi và bao nhiêu công việc nhà đang chờ đợi nhưng tôi không phiền lòng than thở vì tôi vẫn còn được một mái nhà cho gia đình mình.FOR ALL THE COMPLAINING
I HEAR ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT
BECAUSE IT MEANS WE HAVE FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
Và những lời than phiền về chính phủ mà tôi nghe đầy tai, nhưng không phiền vì được sống trong một quốc gia có Tự Do Ngôn Luận.
FOR THE PARKING SPOT
I FIND AT THE FAR END OF THE PARKING LOT
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM CAPABLE OF WALKING
AND I HAVE BEEN BLESSED WITH TRANSPORTATION .
Bãi đậu xe chật ních, tôi chỉ tìm được một chỗ đậu xa lắc xa lơ, nhưng vui vì mình còn có một cái xe để di chuyển và còn mạnh khỏe để đi bộ.
FOR MY HUGE HEATING BILL
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM WARM.
Tiền điện mùa đông này cao quá, nhưng tôi không than thở vì tôi vẫn còn được sưởi ấm, so với những người phải sống trong giá lạnh.
FOR THE LADY BEHIND ME IN CHURCH
WHO SINGS OFF KEY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I CAN HEAR.
Ở trong nhà thờ, cái bà đứng sau tôi hát sai điệu nhạc hết trơn nhưng tôi không lấy làm phiền vì thính giác của mình vẫn còn tốt trong khi kẻ khác không còn khà năng nghe được.
FOR THE PILE OF LAUNDRY AND IRONING
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE CLOTHES TO WEAR.
Đồ đạc quần áo chất đống để chờ tôi giặt, ủi, nhưng tôi không phiền vì mình vẫn còn có nhiều quần áo để mặc.FOR WEARINESS AND ACHING MUSCLES AT THE END OF THE DAY
BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE BEEN CAPABLE OF WORKING HARD.Sau một ngày làm việc tôi mệt mỏi và đau nhức các bắp thịt, nhưng tôi vui vì mình vẫn còn có khả năng làm được những việc nặng nhọc.FOR THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS
BECAUSE IT MEANS I AM ALIVE.Buổi sáng ngủ ngon mà bị đồng hồ báo thức, đáng lẽ phải càu nhàu, nhưng tôi vui vì biết mình còn sống.AND I AM THANKFUL: FOR THE crazy people I work with
BECAUSE they make work interesting and fun!
Với những người làm việc chung với tôi, có nhiều tính khí khác lạ, tôi không phiền vì chính nhờ họ mà công việc không trở nên buồn tẻ mà trái lại thêm thích thú.AND FINALLY, FOR TOO MUCH E-MAIL
Và cuối cùng nhận được nhiều e-mail quá tôi không phiền, vì điều đó chứng tỏ rằng tôi có nhiều bạn.BECAUSE IT MEANS I HAVE FRIENDS WHO ARE
THINKING OF ME.
2021_Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, USA.
-VIDEO :The Best Email Of The Year
Live well, Laugh often, &Love with all of your heart!
