What to Read at the Thanksgiving Table
How to Have a Celebration of Our American Thanksgiving Heritage
We Americans don’t know how to celebrate holidays. We feast, and that is good, but feasting doesn’t create the joy it did in past centuries. Nowadays, we get to eat meat at every meal, we can eat vegetables even in the winter, and we can always finish up with something sweet. Best of all, we have enough that we can keep eating until we’re not hungry anymore. Only the nobility could do that for most of history– and even they couldn’t get vegetables in the winter. Feasting is still festive, and it promotes good fellowship, but we can do more. We should make speeches, pray, sing, and talk about the meaning of the holiday. This holds true for all holidays, and for Thanksgiving in particular. Here is what I’ve come up with over the years.
Before the meal, the Head of Household should appoint Heads of Tables, one for each table if you have so many people you need separate tables. Once people sit down and start eating, “the Head” in these instructions means the Head of Table and each table is autonomous, going at its own rate. The Head of Table should tell people at his table in advance if he wants them to read an item so they’ll be ready mentally. If one of the separate tables is “The Kid’s Table”, that’s fine— the Head of Table can be a child if he’s old enough to read and lead.
1. The Head of the Household should read the current Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation, unless it’s very bad. The current one is President Biden’s proclamation for 2024, and it’s fine. Biden is a bad President and a bad man. Nonetheless, we should read his Proclamation, because, nonetheless, he IS our President. A list of proclamations from 1778 to 2024 is available, and John Wooley has done a fascinating analysis of how different Presidents have emphasized different thing (God, and history, for example).
2. Everyone sing, “We’re Gathered Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing.” Make multiple copies of this beforehand. Do not make one copy for each person. Make one for each two or three people, so they’ll share and be forced to help each other.
3. The Head of Household says a prayer. He should really say his own prayer, but if you’re shy about that, I recommend the 1662 Anglican “prayer of General Thanksgiving” authored by Edward Reynolds, John Donne’s successor as preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, member of the Westminster Assembly, Warden of Merton College, Oxford, and the only Puritan to accept a bishopric (Norwich) after the Restoration.
Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all men. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.
I prefer, however, something homelier, less formal and more specific, something like,
Thank you, Lord God, for the many blessings you’ve given us– the wonderful food we are about to eat, the Smiths being able to be with us today, John’s recovery from his car crash injuries, and Tom finding a job after being unemployed so long. Thank you for sweet baby Julia and for preserving Jane through such a difficult pregnancy. Thank you for the good heat we have in this house this frosty day. We pray that our conversation will be merry and edifying, and that we will appreciate our good health and freedom from fear. In Jesus’s name we pray, and together we all say: Amen.
4. Start eating. Probably you have been cooking too long and everybody is famished.
5. After a while, the Head of Table reads, or appoints someone to do read, Edward Winslow’s 1621 story of the first Thanksgiving. One way to do this is to pass the sheet around and have each person read a little at a time.
Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good,
but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown, they came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom;
our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a more special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.
They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week.
At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms,
many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men,
whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.
And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.
6. At intervals that seem appropriate to the Head of Table, appoint divers other people to read the other readings, in any order. The Head calls the table to order each time and says what is going to be read and who is reading it. These are not to be read all at once, but at intervals, or it will get tedious.
(6a) The 1676 First Proclamation
(6b) Psalm 100. Use the King James Version; it is grander, more beautiful, and no harder to understand than childish translations like the New International Version (NIV), designed to be read by 12-year-olds (or by 3rd-graders, in another of its versions). In its list of “Translation Reading Levels,” Christianbooks.com says the King James Version is at the 12th grade reading level, but that’s sad; few people stayed in school past 8th grade for most of American history, yet they could read the King James Bible. Even a child can appreciate the beauty of these words– and while you’re at it, you might ask the children to think of some joyful noises they could make unto the Lord and try them out.
1 Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
(6c) The 1789 Washington Proclamation
(6d) The 1777 Proclamation
Or, pass around the words and have each person read one paragraph. Be careful that this does not shame people who aren’t good at reading if you do pass them around.
After each reading, the Head of Table should try to get some conversation going about it. Ask what the hard words mean. Tell about the history—King Philip’s War, the Revolutionary War, the Constitution, peace in Israel and the meaning of the word “shalom”, and so forth. Maybe do read up beforehand so you can do this.
When the guests go home, give them the leftover copies of the readings to take with them. This will be one of their most memorable Thanksgivings. And if you do this every year, you will learn much that is worthwhile about why we should be thankful.