Being Thankful

[HostDave]

By Timothy Rubacky, Senior Vice President

Today, I’m sitting down with friends here in Memphis to celebrate a holiday with historic roots and one which is a gentle reminder in our busy world to take a broader view of our lives. No one can make another person be thankful for their blessings, but there’s something about the holiday spirit, not to mention a golden turkey and savory stuffing, that helps set the stage.

On board the American Queen, our guests are sitting down amid the splendor of the J.M. White Dining Room to a far more amazing experience than I can muster here in my home since I don’t have famed Southern chef Regina Charboneau’s culinary skills or family recipes. Turkey with all the trimmings is just part of what makes Thanksgiving special aboard the American Queen. Regina, our Chef de Cuisine, presents a cornucopia of traditional treats while guests enjoy a fabulous feast. Surrounded by Victorian décor and new friends with the river rolling by, our guests are gaining a deep appreciation for the sense of family, hospitality and kindness that makes a Southern Thanksgiving like no other. After dinner, guests can settle into a rocking chair on the Front Porch of America for an after-dinner nap. Then a cup of hot cider beckons as does another piece of spicy pumpkin pie or bourbon pecan pie.

Of course, Thanksgiving wasn’t always this grand. The origins of the holiday are subject to much debate but most historians agree that it probably started in 1621 in Plymouth, MA although there is no documentation of what was consumed or how it was all prepared. It was initiated as a way of celebrating the bounty of a good harvest.

Good harvest or not, Thanksgiving started to be celebrated with frequency in 1623, inspired by the declaration of Governor Bradford. The formal but not yet official holiday of Thanksgiving powered on for another 40 years of infrequent but ongoing celebration until around 1670 when it became a regular occurrence. Usually it was combined into a New England-based festival of fasting and thanksgiving. The church took the lead in initiating Thanksgiving until 1682 when the state stepped in to proclaim the holiday.

As one might expect, if the government was involved in Thanksgiving then political infighting wasn’t far behind! The American Revolution but a whole new spin on the holiday as the country broke from England. The royal governors independently made proclamations declaring a time of Thanksgiving but invariably invoked them as God’s showing of support for their political causes. It wasn’t until George Washington created the first nationwide Thanksgiving in 1789 that the tradition was firmly set, officially recognized, and annually observed.

Though we think of Thanksgiving as a quintessentially American holiday, the Pilgrims and Puritans might actually have borrowed the idea from events during the siege of Leiden in 1574, when Spain’s attempts to conquer Lieden, Holland were rebuffed and the locals celebrated a day of Thanksgiving in recognition of their deliverance from the fury of the Spaniards.

The date of Thanksgiving varied widely in the early years but by 1800, most states had settled on the last Thursday in November. The official declaration was made by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863 not so much to standardize the holiday but to try to create a common celebration and sense of unity between the North and South. His timing was off, of course, thanks to the Civil War raging at the time, and the South didn’t accept the universal date until the 1870s after the war had ended and the nation had begun to heal.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt switched Thanksgiving to the current fourth Thursday in November on December 26, 1941.

The result is the holiday we’re observing today here in my home in Memphis and aboard the American Queen dockedin Natchez, MS. It is a remarkable day and time to count our blessings. We hope you’ll join us next year on our Thanksgiving voyage November 22-30 sailing roundtrip from New Orleans with a free pre-cruise luxury hotel stay in the Big Easy.

Until then, have a Happy Thanksgiving, a wonderful meal and a blessed day wherever you may be!