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Take Back Thanksgiving
There aren’t many Thanksgiving movies but I love A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. For the past few years my husband and I have been watching the movie with our kids a few days before Thanksgiving. This past weekend we scrounged around our overflowing collection of movies to find it and popped it in.
For anyone who hasn’t watched it, it’s seriously cute and my daughter has the biggest belly laugh when Snoopy has a fight with the lawn chair. It gets her every year!
Poor Charlie Brown gets in over his head as he somehow ends up hosting Thanksgiving dinner. His feast ends up being buttered toast and popcorn.
Peppermint Patty rants, “What kind of Thanksgiving dinner is this? Where’s the turkey, Chuck? Don’t you know anything about Thanksgiving dinners? Where’s the mashed potatoes? Where’s the cranberry sauce? Where’s the pumpkin pie?”
As I was watching the movie this year I wondered how often we are like Peppermint Patty? Where we get stuck on the details of the day but miss the real reason for the holiday.
Let’s not let the extras get in the way.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
I loved watching the parade when I was little. It’s beautiful! But it’s changed.
Every year it seems to get bigger and bigger and less about the spirit of Thanksgiving. There appears to be less charity/organization floats to bring awareness and more Broadway productions and pop star entertainers.
While I’ll still probably tune in, I don’t think I’ll watch all three hours of it!
Food
So often food becomes the main attraction on Thanksgiving. It’s even gotten the nickname Turkey Day!
Now I’m certainly not saying don’t have a meal. Or don’t enjoy good food. I mean I love mashed sweet potatoes!
But lets make sure that the making and preparing of the food doesn’t overwhelm us to the point of missing out. One less side dish or pie is likely not going to make your table look bare!
Football
Oh my the NFL. With all that’s been happening with the NFL and players refusing to participate in the National Anthem it’s just a mess. Thanksgiving is not about zoning out in a tryptophan daze while watching football.
Black Friday shopping
And in my opinion the worst offender in stripping away the importance of Thanksgiving has been Black Friday shopping. Store are becoming more overzealous with store hours and promotions. I’ve know people to use the Thanksgiving meal as a time to map out the different stores, sales, coupons, and giveaways they are going to participate in.
Let’s be reminded of the reason for Thanksgiving
The Puritans traveled on the Mayflower in 1620. They left because they wanted to be able to practice faith their way without government oversight. The relationship with Native Americans meant survival as they taught the Puritans how to grow food. In the Fall of 1621 they had a three day celebration to commemorate their first harvest.
https://www.plimoth.org/ is a great site for more information about the Puritans.
This Thanksgiving let us take the day to thank God for His love and mercy. For our ability to praise and worship God because of others before us. And for our family and friends.
[ctt template=”7″ link=”hef3Y” via=”yes” ]This Thanksgiving let us take the day to thank God for His love and mercy. For our ability to praise and worship God because of others before us. And for our family and friends. [/ctt]
From the wise words of Marcie, “But Thanksgiving is more than eating, Chuck. You heard what Linus was saying out there. Those early Pilgrims were thankful for what had happened to them, and we should be thankful, too. We should just be thankful for being together. I think that’s what they mean by ‘Thanksgiving,’ Charlie Brown.”
God bless!
Melissa
Such an awesome reminder of staying focused on family and self-care during this holiday season. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Holly! I love Thanksgiving but too often the focus gets shifted away from where it should be. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
This is just an adorable reminder for all of us about the true meaning of “Thanksgiving.” This world has tried so very hard to remove the true meaning of most holidays. That is why we have to do the best that we can to stay focused on God and what he intends on us to remember about these wonderful holidays that we celebrate 🙂 Be blessed!
You are so right Keisha! We have to remain focused. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
It is so easy to miss the joy of the season as a mother, concerned with all the details of the holiday. I try to make the whole thing a family event. My daughters helped plan everything and were totally in charge of some part. They took a lot of pleasure in this.
I look forward to that as my children get older. I have a few art projects for them to help me with! Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
What a wonderful reminder for me. I live 16 hours away from my family, so we spend the holidays with my husband’s family. I have been complaining that their food isn’t as good and the traditions aren’t the same, but it’s not about the food. It’s about being with family who we love, and showing our appreciation for them!
I’m glad the post was beneficial for you. We can get caught up in the details and miss the real reason we celebrate. Thank you for reading and commenting! Happy Thanksgiving! God bless!
I love A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We watch it almost every year with my kids. We must focus on the giving of thanks and not on all the material things surrounding the holiday.
It’s such a cute movie with a big message! I love making it a part of our Thanksgiving tradition. It helps the kids (and us) to focus on the real reasons for us to be thankful. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
oh Yes! the significance of this day is solely allowing yourself to be oberhwlrned by the immense incredible things God has done for us that we do not even deserve.
Amen! Because no matter the individual or life circumstance, God has done immense and incredible things in their life. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
Such a good reminder! It is so easy to get caught up in the bucket-list of things to do and doing them that we forget all we have to be thankful for! x
It is very easy! I’m a to-do list kind of lady but I’m trying my best to remain grounded and remember who has given me the wonders in my life. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
Love the reminder of history!! (Shared to a pinterest board)
Thank you Tammy! My husband is a history buff. He must be wearing off on me! Thank you for sharing. God bless!
We just watched that movie this other day!
It’s so cute, right! Thank you for stopping by! God bless!
You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever read Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving movie…. I may need to remedy that this year.
Oh my! You’ll love it! Thank you for stopping by. You’ll have to let me know what you think! God bless!
Beautifully written!
Thank you for the encouragement and for stopping by! God bless!
Thank you, Melissa, for this fine reminder of why we gather and what the celebration is truly about. My husband and I have no children. We live far from family. Yet we so love the Thanksgivings when we are just us and sharing God’s generosity and glorifying Him in peace. We have been to family’s and had our family to our home. We have shared the day with neighbors who also have no children (but we have moved away from that area recently). Those days were special for us too. Each Thanksgiving is about the Gift for us. We want to keep the thankfulness and giving as the most important aspect of the day. Thanks for coming by to Being Woven for I found you.
Caring through Christ, ~ linda
I’m so glad Linda that you and your husband are able to take the day to glorify God and His generosity. It’s not about the number of people that gather but the focus and love in their heart. Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
Our family loves the Peanuts Thanksgiving movie:)
In the past, I’ve been wrapped up in making everything perfect and it was exhausting! Last year we stayed home and it was just the 7 of us and it was the most meaningful Holiday. We made it about family and relaxing in the blessings of the day!
That sounds wonderful! We will be visiting family throughout the weekend but I’m going to make it my focus to enjoy the each gathering and be grateful for time spent together! Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
Keeping an attitude of gratitude is certainly a challenge as we add more and more to-do items to our Thanksgiving Day celebrations. This year, we are going back to simplifying the day, to focus on thankfulness for our Lord, our country, our family, and our friends.
That sounds like it will be a wonderful day! Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
Charlie Brown is so cute! We watched Charlie Brown and New Year’s something tonight.
But yes, as far as Thanksgiving goes, it’s important to consider if we are willing to give up what we have to truly worship God.
And it is a powerful question that we must ask ourselves. Are we willing to allow _______ to get in the way of our relationship with God? To hinder us from truly knowing and experiencing Him? Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
You share such great points here! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, but you are right. It so easily becomes crowded with all the STUFF. (I won’t make a list, because you already did that!) Our children are still quite small, so we have been talking about new traditions that will help to enforce our values and faith in their young hearts and lives. Your post encourages me that there are others who feel the same pull to give our holiday time to the One to Whom all thanks belongs.
I love the ability to create new traditions to help guide, shape, and mold our little ones so that they can be better equipped to answer God’s call for them later in life. It is humbling and an honor that God entrusts that task to us isn’t it?! Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving but I have always thought that food in most festivities cause so many of us to forget the real meaning of the celebration. God bless you for this.
Thank you Jackie! Food does have a tendency to become too much of a focus in most holidays. We take too much time planning, prepping, preparing, and eating! The central focus of each of our holidays should be on God and then family. Everything else is just extras! Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
What a great addition to Literacy Musing Mondays this past week! I often overlook my freedom to praise God as I wish. I need to do it more than what I do.
Thank you Tami. It is a beautiful gift that we are able to freely praise and worship God in any manner we see fit because of the blood, sweat, and tears of so many before us. Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!