The tradition of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States originated in 1621 when the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians jointly celebrated their survival and the autumn harvest with a shared meal. Over one hundred years later, George Washington issued a proclamation calling on citizens to express their gratitude for the conclusion of the war for independence and ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
With the intention to “heal the wounds of the nation”, Abraham Lincoln made a renewed call in 1863 for a national holiday of Thanksgiving and set an official date of the last Friday of each November. Commerce entered the picture in 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt sought to advance the holiday earlier in the calendar to bolster retail sales. That plan met with opposition and the holiday landed at its present position of the fourth Thursday of each November.
It took over 300 years and several iterations for Americans to reach a consensus agreement on when the holiday should be celebrated. Fortunately, as far as our research turned up, there was never opposition to the concept of Thanksgiving, just some minor fussing over the calendar.
There are many synonyms for thanksgiving in the dictionary, with appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness among them. Gratitude is the word that presents itself most strongly to us this season.
Gratitude is something that doesn’t always come naturally. It’s in the nature of humans to look at all the things we could have accomplished rather than focus on the progress we have made. In the midst of pressing hard to fulfill a mission, serve clients, and meet deadlines, we’ve found that its useful to hit the pause button from time to time and intentionally cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”.
That’s why we are pausing today to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. and wanted to take the opportunity to acknowledge and express appreciation for each of you who spends a few moments each day to engage with the content we publish on TheWiseMarketer.com.
We also want to recognize the partners, sponsors, and advisors who have helped us give new life to this treasured brand — and to establish a central, trusted source of news, opinion, research, and education on customer loyalty, but also everything to do with customer marketing.
I’d also like to acknowledge our team. It’s important to have the right people on board and we have a group in place now that is knowledgeable, energetic, and committed to serving the customer engagement and loyalty industry worldwide.
Gratitude is said to connect people to something larger than just themselves as individuals. No matter where you live and what you are celebrating, I hope that a moment of gratitude will connect us all. That’s our goal, to connect this industry on a global basis and to serve each of you better as we move forward.
Thanks.
