The annual American holiday called Thanksgiving formally began with an 1863 proclamation from Abraham Lincoln declaring the last Thursday in November a day of “thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens,” as well as “humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.”
The thought behind Thanksgiving is outward toward God and his blessings and not inward, which suggests gratitude to no one in particular for whatever positives might have occurred in one’s life. In the more secular view, these positives are not blessings, but are to be chalked up to luck, or “good fortune.” May “The Force” be with you.
Most presidents after Lincoln generally followed the pattern of giving thanks to the Deity, even and especially during wars and economic downturns.
In 1939, in the midst of The Great Depression and a looming World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was still able to proclaim: “Let us, on the day set aside for this purpose, give thanks to the Ruler of the Universe for the strength which He has vouchsafed us to carry on our daily labors and for the hope that lives within us of the coming of a day when peace and the productive activities of peace shall reign on every continent.”
That optimistic sentiment was reinforced in the Vera Lynn song “The White Cliffs of Dover,” which contained this lyric: