Sen. Chip Pearson
By Sen. Chip Pearson
ATLANTA (November 21, 2008) – This week as we gather with family and friends, we give thanks and praise God for the many blessings in our lives. During these challenging times for our nation, Thanksgiving is a time to remind us that hope is beyond the stock market, alternative energy solutions and big business bailouts.
This pause for thanks, reflection and remembrance has continued throughout our nation’s history in much tougher times than these, and we have always prevailed together as “one nation under God.”
On the fourth Thursday in November, Americans express gratitude for their good fortune. The American Thanksgiving tradition originated with the Pilgrims. As early as 1621, the puritan colonists of Plymouth, Massachusetts set aside a day of thanks for a bountiful harvest. Throughout the colonial period and into the nineteenth century, official days of feasting and fasting commemorated periods of good and poor fortune.