Fakesgiving – May 30, 2024

History of Fakesgiving

Fakesgiving is a holiday that was necessitated by a global pandemic keeping everyone indoors over protracted periods.It is a relatively new holiday about which not much is known, but one definite fact is that it was born from Thanksgiving. The history of the Thanksgiving holiday in North America is rooted in English traditions that date as far back as the Protestant Reformation. The holiday also has some elements of the harvest festivals, despite the harvest season in New England occurring long before November, the month in which Thanksgiving is celebrated.

The English Reformation, which occurred during Henry VIII’s reign, made traditions of special thanksgiving religious services a thing of importance. Prior to 1536, England had 95 church holidays, in addition to the 52 Sundays in each year, when it was required of people to attend church and abandon work. By virtue of the Church of England’s reforms in 1536, as well as Puritan Sabbatarianism, the church holidays were to be replaced by days that were regarded as special Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving, as a response to events that were deemed to be acts of special providence.

Days of thanksgiving were called for as a result of occurrences that were considered to be divine blessings, and these were observed through Christian church services as well as other gatherings. Two instances of this were the Days of Thanksgiving, which were declared following the 1588 victory over the Spanish Armada and the deliverance of Queen Anne in 1605. Following the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, a special annual Day of Thanksgiving commenced the following year in 1606, and it became the foundation for Guy Fawkes Day on November 5. Annual thanksgiving prayers were dictated by the charter of English settlers following their safe landing in America in 1619 at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia