6 Thanksgiving Stories

By Michael Griego on November 27, 2019 • ( 0 )

Looking for a good Thanksgiving story to tell or share at your Thanksgiving dinner? Here are 6 intriguing stories to inform, encourage, and enlighten you about this wonderful holiday. ◊

The Thanksgiving Holiday is a beautiful slow build into the Christmas season. A wonderful time for personal pause, reflection, appreciation, joy, and human interaction. A time to further connect, share stories and perspectives.

For those who are Christians, the Thanksgiving holiday maps well to one’s own thankfulness to God and a time of grateful reflection and celebration with friends and loved ones. For secularists or non-believers the holiday is still a wonderful time of family gatherings in peace and thankfulness.

What’s curious though today is how the historic origins of Thanksgiving seem to be slowly fading from our national memory. The stories associated with Thanksgiving are truthfully tragic while uplifting as they depict the worst and the best of our human nature and the woes and hardships of life. The stories should be known, understood, and retold.

Where all of us can be unified is in documented history and backstories surrounding Thanksgiving and its roots as an all-American holiday.

6 Stories
Here are 6 Thanksgiving stories that lend themselves to good reading with friends and family around a fireplace or even the dinner table this year.

The Indian Stranger – The first Thanksgiving in 1621 was celebrated with gratefulness for God’s provisions and survival, including a “special instrument sent of God…” This story presents the amazing divine intervention of an Indian named Squanto and the life-saving role he played in the first Thanksgiving. Read the story here.
A Pilgrim’s Hope and Loss – Here’s a Thanksgiving story you might have forgotten, or never knew. This story depicts the dark and harrowing experiences of the Pilgrims upon their initial landing at Cape Cod and the personal tragedy that struck their leader William Bradford even before all the Pilgrims departed the Mayflower. Read the story here.
The Pilgrim’s Process – Acknowledging that their purpose was spiritual, the Pilgrims had a clear vision and staked their lives on following it. This story highlights the particulars in process around the small band of literal Pilgrims on the Mayflower ship and their compact with each other and shipmates before landing and establishing that first colony at Plymouth on the shores of Cape Cod. Read the story here.
Thanksgiving – the Economic Story – You know the Pilgrim story about the first Thanksgiving. Did you ever hear it as a lesson in human nature and economics? This story highlights the very real survival trials of the first Pilgrims that led to the experimental foundations of a new economic system that changed the course of history. Read the story here.
The Thanksgiving Challenge – A man, at his wife’s urging, agreed to spend a few hours before Thanksgiving handing out food packages and turkeys to others in need. A series of events leads to The Thanksgiving Challenge for the whole family. Read the story here.
America – a City Upon a Hill? – That this country, America, was founded by imperfect people of Christian faith and continues to be populated as such, only speaks to the continued fulfillment of Winthrop’s vision of this community as a beacon for a dark world seeking light. Read the story here.

Have a Happy and Wonderful Thanksgiving!
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Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:6-7