Why America Still Needs a Holiday Built on Gratitude

Is it just me, or does it feel like Thanksgiving gets squeezed right out of the American calendar? One minute it’s Halloween candy on the shelves, and the next minute it’s Christmas lights, inflatable Santas, and “Jingle Bells.” It’s as if Thanksgiving has become an inconvenient speed bump for too many of us.

And yet, as Americans, we need Thanksgiving more than ever.

It’s not just a day on which we gather. It’s a day that reminds us of who we are.

You see, the Founding Fathers didn’t see Thanksgiving as only a seasonal celebration or a ceremonial tradition. To them, giving thanks was a civic duty, as essential to the health of the republic as voting. George Washington issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789, urging Americans to thank “the great Lord and Ruler of Nations” for His providence.

John Adams believed gratitude kept arrogance in check.

Ben Franklin wrote that nations fall when their people credit government, not God, for their prosperity.

And Abraham Lincoln — in the middle of the Civil War — established Thanksgiving as an annual national holiday. Think about that. In the darkest chapter of American history, Lincoln understood that gratitude was not a luxury. It was a necessity.

Of course, giving thanks is hardly an exclusive American value — it is also profoundly Biblical, as well. “Give thanks in all circumstances.” (1 Thess. 5:18) “Enter His gates with thanksgiving.” (Ps. 100:4) “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.” (Ps. 107:1) And when Jesus fed the five thousand, He first gave thanks before multiplying the five loaves and two fish (John 6:11), showing that gratitude precedes blessing.

Jesus didn’t wait until the miracle happened to give thanks. He didn’t wait until the crowd was fed, or until the problem was solved. He gave thanks for what He had, even though it clearly wasn’t enough. Yet Jesus lifted it up, thanked His Father, and then the miracle unfolded.

The same was true for early Pilgrims when they gathered for that first Thanksgiving and gave thanks for what they had (and it wasn’t much). They had buried half their colony. They faced disease, starvation, brutal winters. And yet — they thanked God.

Not because life was easy or everything was perfect.

And here we are, living in the most prosperous nation in history, and perhaps we have never been more ungrateful as a country. Too many criticize America as “oppressive” while enjoying the freedoms that billions of people can only dream of. They’ve replaced gratitude with grievance. Gratitude with outrage. Gratitude with victimhood.

And when our thankfulness disappears, so does our perspective.

We stop seeing what we have. We stop seeing how far we’ve come. We stop seeing the opportunities all around us and the good in one another. We stop seeing the hand of God blessing this nation.

Yes, there are millions of us who still bow our heads over turkey and dressing. We still gather as families. We still pause. We still remember. And in that moment, we tap into the same spirit that brought the Pilgrims through winter, the Founders through revolution, Lincoln through the Civil War, and our grandparents through the Great Depression.

The struggle to be more grateful is real. Gratitude is often called the shortest-lived emotion because, psychologically, the human brain adapts quickly to good fortune. What once felt extraordinary soon becomes ordinary and we shift our focus back to what’s missing – rather than what’s meaningful.

In this season of Thanksgiving, then, let us remember that gratitude doesn’t just reflect our blessings — it multiplies them. After all, it’s easy to thank God after the blessing comes, after the doors open, after the need is met.

But Jesus taught us to be thankful before the miracle – and by doing so, we won’t likely ever forget to count what counts most – those blessings already received.