A Time To Be Thankful!

                                            Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful.

To share with others the true joy of being thankful. 

It is a time to be grateful to God, our creator and 

sustainer of life. The one who loves us with an 

unconditional love now, and forever. Our God, 

who sees the good in us and guides us on our 

journey, leading us to Him. We thank Him for 

His bountifulness to us so we in turn can share 

with others. May each and every day, draw us 

closer to Him so others will see Christ in us. 

Let us share our Lord and His love with them. 

Amen. 

Susan Reichert

Thanksgiving !

                                    

The time of year has come.

People are busy preparing

homes and food

for the coming together

with family and friends

to share Thanksgiving.

Some of us will celebrate

Thanksgiving early

so sons and daughters

can share Thanksgiving

with their in-laws.

 

For my family we celebrate tomorrow.

We are grateful for the opportunity

To be with our family.

The Covid pandemic seems to be over

We relish being able to sit at the

table with our loved ones where you

can be sure we will be giving thanks

for each other.

 

We wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

 

Thanksgiving: A Grateful Day from the Beginning

Special congratulations are in order to Amanda Stephan, winner of the "One Stop Shopping" Contest!

by Richelle Putnam

Happy Thanksgiving from Southern Writers Magazine!

For today’s special blog, I wanted to share some Thanksgiving facts:

DID YOU KNOW?

Spaniard Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his men celebrated a "Thanksgiving" in 1541 while searching for gold in today’s Texas Panhandle.


Other feasts were held by French Huguenot colonists in 1564, by English colonists and Abnaki Indians in 1607, and in Jamestown, Virginia in 1610.

In October 1621, Thanksgiving dinner guests in Plimouth, (Plymouth) Mass., included approximately 90 Wampanoag American Indian men and 50 English colonists.

For the Thanksgiving menu Colonists provided wild fowl, which probably included ducks, geese, and turkey, and the Wampanoag provided venison and Indian corn. However, other dishes most likely included fish, nuts, lobster, wheat flour, clams, pumpkin, peas, carrots and squash. While cranberry sauce probably wasn’t served because sugar was very expensive, the Native Americans used cranberries in various foods and also as a medicine to treat wounds. Potatoes and sweet potatoes (not a staple food) and pumpkin pie (couldn’t make the crust) were most likely NOT served.

In 1784, Benjamin Franklin suggested to his daughter that the wild turkey would be a more appropriate national symbol for the United States than the bald eagle.

In 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving Day a national holiday, but even before this date, George Washington, John Adams and James Madison had all issued proclamations encouraging Americans to observe thanksgiving.

In 1876, the American Intercollegiate Football Association held its first championship game on Thanksgiving Day.

In 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt established the fourth Thursday of November as the annual day for observance.

The above statistics bear evidence that Americans have been giving thanks since the country’s inception. Throughout my lifetime, I have shared many Thanksgivings with family and friends. Some are no longer with me, but I remain grateful for the time we had together and cherish the memories of past Thanksgivings with my grandfather and grandmother and my godson. I’m thankful for my husband, my children and my grandchildren and that we’re all healthy. I’m thankful for my writer family, especially my Southern Writers family. I’m thankful for my home, my community and my state.

And I’m thankful to be an American where giving thanks has been a tradition for hundreds of years.

After your fill of turkey, cornbread dressing, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and other delicacies of Thanksgiving, why not relax, grab pen and paper and jot down all the things you are thankful for today?

In fact, why not try doing that everyday? After all, giving thanks shouldn’t come only once a year!

My Thankful List

by Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief

We all at one time or another say we are thankful for something or someone.  Lately I have begun to wonder if we really understand what that word means and if we do in fact mean it.

I realized that I have many opportunities every day to thank someone for helping me and to tell them just how grateful I am they took some of their time and spent it on me.

All the moments in a day when someone gives me comfort or pleasure, I need to make sure to say thank you. I need to remember not to take them for granted.

Perhaps, I should make a list, I can call it my Thankful List, and make a note of each thing and each person I am grateful for and at the end of the week begin a new list. Keeping the lists I could check at the end of every month how many times each was listed during the month. Then spending a few moments reflecting on all the things I do have in my life to be grateful for all the time, showing me just how blessed I am.

So let me say to you all right now, thank you, have a blessed Thanksgiving.

The Eagle: My Bird of Choice for Thanksgiving

by Doyne Phillips, Managing Editor

We have an ample share of literature, movies and magazines that highlight the underbelly of our society. It takes little effort to find the demonic, pornographic or profanity packed works. It is available at every turn and is promoted in every manner. I was speaking to an ACW group and explained that if not for having grandchildren who generously share their G rated movies I would think there was nothing else but R rated movies and literature out there.

There is a large selection of wonderful entertainment available to us all. My concern is it can be difficult to find if it is something other than a Disney, Pixar, Thomas Nelson or other well-funded studio or publisher that can get the word out. There are many well done presentations that cannot get funded due to either the personal taste, social agenda or marketing decisions of a few executives. The works that are produced and not promoted must get the word out by building a platform and networking. With today’s social media, networking is a viable alternative.

Winston Churchill once said, “When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.” Feeling the parrots have jabbered long enough, Southern Writers Magazine was founded to highlight good literature and the authors that bring it to us. I feel fortunate to be a part of the marketing effort. This Thanksgiving one of my many things to be thankful for is the fact there are others that feel the way we do and they too are pursuing the good and positive part of our world of literature. To each of you who have become a part of the Southern Writers Magazine Family I say Thank You and Happy Thanksgiving! May your bird of choice be the eagle as you dare to speak and write words that positively impact the world.