Thankful for Thanksgiving

I will admit that as of now I have Christmas fever. I have been battling this for the last week and a half. I know others may be suffering from this as well. You, yourself may even be inflicted. See the symptoms below:

-The urge to decorate with lights and Christmas cheer
-The urge to throw up your Christmas tree
-The urge to start in on all the old holiday classic movies such as Frosty The Snowman, Rudolph, It's A Wonderful Life, National Lampoon's Christmas, etc.
-You may find yourself singing Christmas carols at random
...And other similar like symptoms.

If you suffer from the symptoms above I will be happy to announce the cure! FOCUS ON THANKSGIVING!

To me it seems like this year more than ever before Thanksgiving is becoming a forgotten holiday. Rather than focus on the thankfulness we should have we are all more focused on Black Friday and Christmas. As much as I love Christmas and am excited about it, not to mention eager to decorate, I won't let myself forget Thanksgiving. I don't want it to become a forgotten holiday. This year stores are actually going to open for Black Friday ON Thanksgiving night! I am kind of astounded at that. I do plan on getting into some of the Black Friday shopping, but not much. I am just going to be getting a few things that I can save tremendously on that I otherwise wouldn't be able to the rest of the year. It IS a good time to put up for Christmas and save money at the same time. We went last year and saved a total of $255.00 which is like half our rent. LOL
However this year I am not going to beat myself to make the deals. I want to enjoy Thanksgiving, and thanks to Pinterest a lot of our Christmas gifts to family will be handmade. Our family, as a whole, has grown so much over the years it has become next to impossible to buy for EVERYONE individually unless we spent about a grand which we just DO NOT have. I plan on sharing some of my handmade gifts on here as I get them done.
But for now I am leaving up my fall decorations, and looking forward to our feast and family gathering on Thursday. I just can't wait to enjoy in our time together, and me and the hubby are going to be cooking the Thanksgiving meal together. I will be making all the sides and he will be in charge of the ham. Our family members who are coming will be bringing desserts, and my mom is making a turkey. Hubby makes a really awesome ham, and even though I have watched him time and again I still haven't mastered it just yet. I have no shame in letting him make this, he enjoys it and so does everyone else.

There are also tons of Thanksgiving movies to enjoy during this holiday. Here's a few of my suggestions:

Our two family favorites are: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

 I will start decorating for Christmas probably Friday or Saturday of this week, until then I'm going to be Thankful for Thanksgiving and enjoy it. It only comes once a year.


Sincerely,
Tori

Here is a bit of background, (as copied from wikipedia), on Thanksgiving for those interested:

History

Thanksgiving in North America had originated from a mix of European and Native traditions.^[1] Typically in Europe, festivals were held before and after the harvest cycles to give thanks for a good harvest, and to rejoice together after much hard work with the rest of the community.^[1] At the time, Native Americans had also celebrated the end of a harvest season.^[1] When Europeans first arrived to the Americas, they brought with them their own harvest festival traditions from Europe, celebrating their safe voyage, peace and good harvest.^[1] Though the origins of the holiday in both Canada and the United States are similar, Americans do not typically celebrate the contributions made in Newfoundland, while Canadians do not celebrate the contributions made in Plymouth, Massachusetts.^[2]

In the United States

Main article: Thanksgiving (United States)

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth By Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914)

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition traces its origins to a 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. There is also evidence for an earlier harvest celebration on the continent by Spanish explorers in Florida during 1565, as well as thanksgiving feasts in the Virginia Colony. The initial thanksgiving observance at Virginia in 1619 was prompted by the colonists' leaders on the anniversary of the settlement.^[7] The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. In later years, the tradition was continued by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.^[8][9][10] While initially, the Plymouth colony did not have enough food to feed half of the 102 colonists, the Wampanoag Native Americans helped the Pilgrims by providing seeds and teaching them to fish. The practice of holding an annual harvest festival like this did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.^[11]
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.^[12]

Contending origins

The claim of where the first Thanksgiving was held in the United States, and even the Americas has often been a subject of debate. Author and teacher Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon, of the University of Florida, have argued that the earliest attested "Thanksgiving" celebration in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565, in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.^[13][14]
Similarly, many historians point out that the first thanksgiving celebration in the United States was held in Virginia, and not in Plymouth. Thanksgiving services were routine in what was to become the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607.^[15] A day of Thanksgiving was codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619.^[16]

Fixing the date of the holiday

The reason for the earlier Thanksgiving celebrations in Canada has often been attributed to the earlier onset of winter in the north, thus ending the harvest season earlier.^[17] Thanksgiving in Canada did not have a fixed date until the late 19th century. Prior to Canadian confederation, many of the individual colonial governors of the Canadian provinces had declared their own days of Thanksgiving. The first official Canadian Thanksgiving occurred on April 15, 1872 when the nation was celebrating the Prince of Wales' recovery from a serious illness.^[17] By the end of the 19th Century, Thanksgiving Day was normally celebrated on November 6. However, when World War I ended, the Armistice Day holiday were usually held during the same week. To prevent the two holidays from clashing with one another, in 1957 the Canadian Parliament proclaimed Thanksgiving to be observed on its present date on the second Monday of October.^[5] Since 1971, when the American Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect, the American observance of Columbus Day has coincided with the Canadian observance of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving in the United States, much like in Canada, was observed on various dates throughout history. The dates of Thanksgiving in the era of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln had been decided by each state on various dates. The first Thanksgiving celebrated on the same date by all states was in 1863 by presidential proclamation. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date of Thanksgiving in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 20th century. And so, in an effort by President Abraham Lincoln (influenced by the campaigning of author Sarah Josepha Hale who wrote letters to politicans for around 40 years trying to make it an official holiday), to foster a sense of American unity between the Northern and Southern states, proclaimed the date to be the final Thursday in November.^[15]
It was not until December 26, 1941, that the unified date changed to the fourth Thursday (and not always final) in November -this time by federal legislation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after two years earlier offering his own proclamation to move the date earlier, with the reason of giving the country an economic boost, agreed to sign a bill into law with Congress, making Thanksgiving a national holiday on the fourth (not final) Thursday in November.

For other facts about Thanksgiving around the world, in other countries, you can visit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving#Observance_around_the_world