Tomorrow is Thanksgiving — that day of the year where families sit down to celebrate each other and everything they are thankful for. Families get together and sit down at the table to enjoy a feast of turkey and fixings, kick back and watch football and parades and enjoy not only being together, but also having time to relax and meditate on the blessings received throughout the year.

This Thanksgiving, or any for that matter, think about the important things — having or being with family, being healthy, having food to eat, having a warm bed, having a home to live in. There are many who have few or none of those things that some take for granted each and every day.

Thanksgiving may be different among families throughout the country, but the fact remains that all who are blessed enough to have family, food and the basic necessities in life should be thankful for such. That’s what the holiday is all about.

It has been celebrated as a Federal holiday every year since 1863 when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November. Thanksgiving was also celebrated nationally in 1789, after a proclamation by George Washington.

The event known as the “First Thanksgiving” by Americans was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in 1621. The feast lasted three days, and it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims. The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “thanksgivings” — days of prayer to thank God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.

Since, the holiday has grown to be much bigger. However, it remains the holiday to count your blessings, celebrate what one is thankful for and to be with loved ones.