Think ICT

About Thanksgiving

Today is the day after the U.S. holiday called Thanksgiving. It’s got quite a history, good and bad, especially if you look at its origins from the perspective of Native Americans. One of the blogs I read, largely to increase my understanding of American History, is the daily posts from Heather Cox Richardson, whose posts are illuminating. She’s a well respected Boston College history professor, so of course, this week she wrote about Thanksgiving. And then there’s this Wikipedia article that provides some fascinating complexity to the story.

I won’t go into the details of the history of Thanksgiving because the links above will say it better than I can. You will learn about a few significant events to anchor your understanding of this holiday, but here’s a few tidbits:

• In 1621, Native Americans of the Wampanoag nation gathered for a meal with early settlers in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. You will learn from the linked articles above that, contrary to what many of us learned in grade school, this event did NOT begin a tradition of annual thanksgiving meals together.
• In 1841, the editor of a popular women’s magazine began to lobby legislators to establish a national day of thanksgiving. It took a few more decades before this would occur.
• In October 1863, President Lincoln first declared it a national day of thanksgiving. This was a month before he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address. Before and after Lincoln’s declarations about it, there were many other leaders who proclaimed and encouraged setting aside days for prayer and thanksgiving.

Overall, I appreciate having this day to gather with family and friends. It reminds us to be thankful for what we have and who we have in our lives.

A Few Things to be Thankful For

I am thankful that I grew up knowing my grandparents and for all the family holidays when we had tasty meals and desserts! You can see in the photo for this post what Hungarian kifli pastries look like. Both of my grandmothers made these and taught us how to make them. The recipe is quite simple and allows for lots of variations in what we use for fillings. Yesterday I made these for our thanksgiving dinner in three different versions: walnuts and apricot jam or walnuts and raisins made in squares, as well as a few crescents filled with a prune jam called lekvar. They are always delicious. For a few more photos, here’s a post about a big batch of kifli that I made 10 years ago. Those were all crescent shaped and not yet sprinkled with powdered sugar.

I am also thankful for the time we got to spend yesterday with our wonderful daughter and her partner, along with some of his family. I wish we had taken photos of our gathering, but alas, no photos. We had yummy ham, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, creamed corn, and stuffing. Along with the Hungarian kiflis, we had a to-die-for lemon meringue pie and got to meet the new adorable rescue puppy adopted by other family members.