The holiday season is once again upon us, and with the month nearly over, we here at ACME are proud to bring you the Eighteenth Annual Holiday Video Festival. This week may mark the start of the holiday season for some people. (Most of the staff at ACME start working on the holidays well before Thanksgiving but after Halloween – we’re not insane.) You may even be decorating the house this week.
Love! Travel! Good books!
Here is a brief history of the holiday you may wish to share with your loved ones:
In the winter of 1620–1621, a group of immigrants in Massachusetts experienced a devastating season. The weather was fierce. Food was scarce. Many died. At last, spring came, then summer, and by the time of the autumn harvest, things were looking about as rosy as they ever do in Massachusetts.
At a fundraising dinner that fall, Governor Bradford stood up and gave a speech:
“Thank God we survived last winter,” he said. “Thank God this harvest gives us a fighting chance to survive the coming winter. And thank you for your support in the last election—please make checks payable to the Committee to Re-Elect the Governor. God bless America, amen. Let’s eat.”
The ensuing winter didn’t turn out too badly, so the superstitious immigrants concluded that Governor Bradford’s magic spell of “Thanksgiving” had done the trick.
The holiday was intermittently celebrated for years, with enthusiasm scaled to the previous winter’s weather, until November 26, 1789, when President Washington issued a proclamation calling for a nationwide day of thanksgiving for the establishment of the Constitution.
Washington’s proclamation wasn’t much different from Bradford’s:
“Thank God we survived last winter,” he said. “Thank God we’ve got a fighting chance to survive the coming winter. Thank God we’ve got our own damn country now and don’t have to put up with a bunch of meddling European bastards. And thank you for your support in the last election—please make checks payable to Federalists for Washington. God bless America, amen. Let’s eat.”
Washington, the Constitution, and many of the immigrants (who were now Americans) survived the winter, so this new spell was also deemed effective.
President Lincoln later proclaimed the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day in 1863 (though he did not survive to see the next Thanksgiving),
but it was moved to the fourth Thursday of the month in 1939 to extend the time available for holiday shopping.
President Ford proposed making it the third Wednesday in September, in order to really extend the time available for holiday shopping, but he made the proposal only to his golden retriever, Liberty, so the suggestion never reached Congress.
And so we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year, in honor of having survived last winter, having gotten rid of those meddling European bastards, having invented our own rules, and having plenty of time to shop before the holidays.
I know it sounds trite, but please take a moment to remember all the people around our country who are homeless and out in the cold this evening.
And so it goes
The Haus of Dcaligari 