Why Some Celebrate Thanksgiving (but not... you know)

Some have asked me over the years why Presbyterians celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday. 

Days of public thanksgiving are found in the Scriptures--magistrates or elders calling on the church to pray and give thanks for certain providences that God had provided. We see it in: 1 Kings 8:62–66; 2 Chronicles 7:8–10; Esther 9:20–22; 2 Chronicles 20:27–28; and Nehemiah 12:27–43. By what we call "good and necessary consequence," days of thanksgiving occur in the life of the church and are part of our covenanting heritage. 

Historically, while Presbyterians rejected "holy days" (see the Westminster Directory for Public Worship [1647] section called "Touching Days and Places for Publick Worship"), they did allow and promote having special fast days that could be called, as well as special days of thanksgiving. Through these being called in the Scripture, our forefathers saw that not only permissible, but prudent on certain occasions. 

Providence would direct the when and why of these days: for example (for thanksgiving), you might have a particularly good harvest, or a war or battle might end, or you might have new officers in the church, or a new magistrate put in office. It could also be at the end of a long winter or in thanks for rain following a drought... maybe even after surviving a harsh winter after crossing the Atlantic in a rickety tall ship that did not have any citrus! 

Here's what the Westminster Directory for Public Worship (1647) says about days of thanksgiving and directing what worship and feasting would look like on those occasions: 

"When any such day [of Thanksgiving] is to be kept, let notice be given of it, and of the occasion thereof, some convenient time before, that the people may the better prepare themselves thereunto.

The day being come, and the congregation (after private preparations) being assembled, the minister is to begin with a word of exhortation, to stir up the people to the duty for which they are met, and with a short prayer for God’s assistance and blessing, (as at other conventions for publick worship,) according to the particular occasion of their meeting.

Let him then make some pithy narration of the deliverance obtained, or mercy received, or of whatever hath occasioned that assembling of the congregation, that all may better understand it, or be minded of it, and more affected with it.
And, because singing of psalms is of all other the most proper ordinance for expressing of joy and thanksgiving, let some pertinent psalm or psalms be sung for that purpose, before or after the reading of some portion of the word suitable to the present business.

Then let the minister, who is to preach, proceed to further exhortation and prayer before his sermon, with special reference to the present work: after which, let him preach upon some text of Scripture pertinent to the occasion.

The sermon ended, let him not only pray, as at other times after preaching is directed, with remembrance of the necessities of the Church, King, and State, (if before the sermon they were omitted,) but enlarge himself in due and solemn thanksgiving for former mercies and deliverances; but more especially for that which at the present calls them together to give thanks: with humble petition for the continuance and renewing of God’s wonted mercies, as need shall be, and for sanctifying grace to make a right use thereof. And so, having sung another psalm, suitable to the mercy, let him dismiss the congregation with a blessing, that they may have some convenient time for their repast and refreshing.

But the minister (before their dismission) is solemnly to admonish them to beware of all excess and riot, tending to gluttony or drunkenness, and much more of these sins themselves, in their eating and refreshing; and to take care that their mirth and rejoicing be not carnal, but spiritual, which may make God’s praise to be glorious, and themselves humble and sober; and that both their feeding and rejoicing may render them more cheerful and enlarged, further to celebrate his praises in the midst of the congregation, when they return unto it in the remaining part of that day.

When the congregation shall be again assembled, the like course in praying, reading, preaching, singing of psalms, and offering up of more praise and thanksgiving, that is before directed for the morning, is to be renewed and continued, so far as the time will give leave.

At one or both of the publick meetings that day, a collection is to be made for the poor, (and in the like manner upon the day of publick humiliation,) that their loins may bless us, and rejoice the more with us. And the people are to be exhorted, at the end of the latter meeting, to spend the residue of that day in holy duties, and testifications of Christian love and charity one towards another, and of rejoicing more and more in the Lord; as becometh those who make the joy of the Lord their strength."