Thanksgiving 2025

What are you thankful for?

A week from tomorrow, we will celebrate our national Thanksgiving Day, officially proclaimed as such by President Lincoln in 1863. Prior to that, each region, mainly in New England and other northern states, had sporadically, and at different times, observed days of feasting and merriment after the autumnal harvests.

Before California became a state of the Union, even before its production of vegetables and grains amounted to much, its residents were urged to observe a day of gratitude. The first official Thanksgiving in California occurred in 1849, during the frenzied, helter-skelter gold rush. This proclamation by General Bennet Riley, California’s last American military governor, was printed in all the leading newspapers of the day:

In conformity with the customs of other States and Territories, and in order that the people of California may make a general and public acknowledgement of their gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of the universe for His kind and fostering care during the past year, and for the boundless blessings which we now enjoy, it is recommended that Thursday, the 29th day of November next, be set apart and kept as a day of Thanksgiving and prayer.

On that Thursday, November 29, 1849, several denominations held mid-morning church services. San Franciscans celebrated with special foods and flowing wines. Ninety-plus-percent male at the time, its number of inhabitants was doubtless temporarily swollen with gold miners who had come down from remote upland mining districts to winter in the city. Newspapers later reported it was a day of good feeling because, in many places private and public throughout the territory, large numbers of people assembled to enjoy abundant fare, musical entertainments; and, of course, the era’s obligatory speeches.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!