Global Warming, Honest Abe, and the Best Month Ever

November is quite possibly my favorite month of the year.

Why? It all boils down to 2 primary reasons.

#1. It is not SUPPOSED to be 90 degrees anymore.

I’d do anything to get these temps turned down. ARE humans causing global warming? I don’t know. I don’t care anymore. If there’s a chance it might work, here, take my car keys……. Wait……. Does that mean I have to home  school again? No, never mind. You can have my electricity, but I am going to have to insist on driving my kids to school. The gas guzzling minivan actually does take precedence over global warming after all. Sorry, y’all.

But seriously, bring on the blue jeans weather!!! And leggings! And boots!

#2. Low maintenance holiday.

Yes, it is. Eat with friends or family. Share the cooking responsibilities. No one has to buy presents. We don’t have to take out any loans. Just be thankful.

And you know who invented Thanksgiving?? Why, President Abraham Lincoln, of course!!

Not making that up. I read about Lincoln all the time. I never thought about presidents of years past until we moved to Washington, D.C. Plus, Caleb adored Lincoln, and it rubbed off on me, sort of like Joshua’s fascination with animals. I love the way my children have changed me!

“…I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed….”     –President Lincoln, Oct. 3, 1863

You have to love a man who was called “Honest Abe” even while he was still alive.

He was greatly loved and equally hated in his own time.

In fact, in our current political system, he would have never been the Republican nominee. How do I know? Because he was elected at the convention, not from the sort of primary system we have now. Nope. The delegates at the Republican convention put in a first ballot, and the person with the most votes was Seward. William Henry Seward. He became President Lincoln’s right hand man, but at the convention it was Seward who won the first round of ballots.

The delegates then haggled and regrouped and voted again and again, allowing the delegates to switch their support. Lincoln won on the third ballot.

Funny how differently it was run back then, isn’t it? I dare say we would have a different nominee if that old system were still in place, actually.

I’m thankful it was Lincoln that won on that third ballot.

I heard in a video on the internet the other day a cartoon character remark that Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday. Ugh. Wrong.

Of course, it IS. It was ALWAYS meant to be. You want a non-religious holiday?? You have Halloween, which is not a bad holiday. It is a time when we come together and fellowship with our neighbors, something we could also use a little more of.

People often cite how terribly divided our country is right now, but remember, it is not “the most divided it has ever been.” We aren’t having a Civil War, now are we?

Be thankful! Give thanks to our beneficent Father!!!

I could go on and on about Lincoln, because he was wonderful, but I’ll save that for another post. Today I just want to wish you a happy fall, remind you to enter my giveaway (because I love to give good things to my friends and readers), and encourage you to pray for our country, just as President Lincoln asked us to so many years ago.

Will you vote this year? I know. These choices are so unpopular. So unpopular I’d be embarrassed to endorse either of them. But it is our civic duty to vote and even more so to pray.

God bless! And bring out the turkeys!!!  🙂

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