November 27, 2025 – 09:00

The story goes like this. In the middle of the Civil War, when the country was ripping itself apart, Abraham Lincoln declared a day of thanksgiving. It wasn’t the first harvest festival in America — New England had done that for years, and presidents before him had issued proclamations — but Lincoln was the one who made it official.

In 1863, after Gettysburg, he called for a national day of thanks. He wanted people, even in war, to pause and remember blessings. The timing wasn’t an accident. He needed to remind a bloodied country that there was still something bigger than battles and bitterness.

Over the years Thanksgiving turned from Lincoln’s wartime prayer into a national holiday of food, family, and football. We traded the solemnity of survival for parades on TV, shopping the next morning, and the ritual of pretending to get along with relatives who don’t deserve our time. The meaning shifted — from survival and gratitude to consumption and distraction.

But I don’t want to forget the original thread. Thanksgiving came from crisis. It came from division. It came from a president trying to stitch a nation together with the thinnest thread of shared gratitude.

And today, in 2025, I’ll say what I’m thankful for: every soul who has come here over the past year to read my thoughts and my stories. You didn’t have to — but you did.

For that, I am thankful.

Thank you for reading this.