Thanksgiving, Then and Now

by John Comer

The last week in November, 1820, the Junkin family completed its immigration and arrived not just in Charleston, but in up-country South Carolina.

It had been 199 years since the Plymouth colonists in New England had celebrated what was to develop into our traditional Thanksgiving Day. (We have our picturesque vision of what it might have been in 1621: Native Americans each with a feather in his hair, turkeys, pumpkins, and shocks of grainstalks.)

It would be 43 years before President Abraham Lincoln would make his now-famous Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1863. (Remember, though, that in 1863 we were two nations at war: The United States of America, and the Confederate States of America. Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation likely didn’t get much action “south of the border.”)

But regardless of what had been and what would be, the last week in November of 1820 was a time of Thanksgiving for this immigrant family. It was the beginning of a new life for them, with promise of harvests to come.

In agrarian societies, which most of the world was until well into the 20th century, harvest was a time for celebrating. Pagans did it. God’s people did it. The Feast of the Ingathering was one of the great festivals of Old Testament times, but the Canaanites had rejoiced in the harvest with considerably less decorum in earlier days.

Our fresh food nowadays comes refrigerated. We eat out of jars and cans and freezer bags. Harvest season for us is a trip to the grocery store. I like it that way. I’ve never butchered a hog. If it becomes necessary, bacon will be off my diet not because of cholesterol, but because of the butchering. When’s the last time you went to the smokehouse to bring in a ham? I’ve dabbled around in a garden enough to know that the surest way to get green peas is to make a trip to Safeway. I’m thankful for supermarkets and what’s on their shelves, and for being able to buy it. This is a special blessing from God.

I hope my ancestors had a happy 1820 Thanksgiving, but I’m thankful things are different now. Somebody else will get the feathers off the turkey. The fresh green beans will come from California, the potatoes from Idaho and Louisiana, and the pumpkin from a Libby’s can. The only drawback is creating a sentimental holiday image from all this.  Let’s just go back to 1621 for the visual effects.

The Lord is good to us. Let’s be thankful.