Even though it’s still a week and a half away, Thanksgiving is a holiday of great importance to this nation and has a lot more history to it than people think. The day when Americans stuff their faces and get fat, at least more than they do on most days, is not just a holiday for eating. And it is not just a holiday for the pilgrims and Indians of Plymouth Rock. Both historically and traditionally, this holiday is one of the most meaningful.

Most people associate Turkey Day with the landing of the Puritan Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in 1620. It is a great image to see Europeans and Indians working together and coming together over a large feast. It is a great image for the early history of what would eventually become the United States. Though it helps to forget that within a hundred years, most of the Indian peoples in the area had been destroyed.

But Hallmark images and Indian Wars aside, the actual history of the holiday is even more interesting and much more modern than people think.

The tradition started, not in 1620, but in 1863 right in the middle of the American Civil War. And it had nothing to do with Pilgrims or Indians. Instead, it was a holiday proposed by President Abe Lincoln to encourage the American people to give thanks and increase national morale. It was also in part to help the Americans celebrate the victories the Union Army had won that year, especially the battles fought at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.

The holiday for giving thanks continued throughout the war and beyond, as people celebrated the return of the soldiers and the victory of the Union. As the years and decades went by, the holiday became more popular, especially when advertisements started to link Turkey Day to the pilgrims and the earlier days of the nation, something that the holiday originally had nothing to do with.

The holiday changed very little after that, with the exception of a date change implemented by President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930’s to try and stimulate the economy, but besides that Thanksgiving remained much the same.

Now a days, Thanksgiving seems to be becoming the forgotten holiday, with stores and malls, and even radio stations, skipping it entirely, going from celebrating Halloween and straight through to Christmas.

Some say it’s because the holiday is not politically correct. There are even protests against it by Indian Rights groups who feel that Thanksgiving, along with holidays like Columbus Day, mark the beginning of the end of Indian culture and way of life. Others say it is not as popular because it cannot be commercialized. All you buy is food, that’s it. No presents, no costumes, nothing that advertisers can really push, so they ignore it.

This simply isn’t right. Thanksgiving is important because it does focus on America’s past. And not just Pilgrims and Indians, but the hard days of the Civil War and the Great Depression. No other major holiday focuses that much on our own national history.

And we should love it more because it cannot be commercialized. It really is the holiday that brings family and friends together for a big dinner. Nothing superficial, just a fun time with good food. What’s more American than that?

Keep Christmas away for a little while longer and celebrate a holiday that means something to all of us, as Americans and as members of a family. It’s a holiday that stretches back to Abe Lincoln, makes us believe that people of different backgrounds can come together and help each other like the Feast at Plymouth Rock showed us, and makes us appreciate what we have, right before the Christmas season of buying everything we don’t have starts.

So celebrate Turkey Day and don’t forget what the holiday is all about; being thankful for what you got.