Why do we GIVE THANKS?
Thursday, 27th November 2025
THANKSGIVING DAY is the most important celebration of the year in the United States. With get-togethers, family dinners, gifts, trips, and reunions, on the last Thursday of November, the country comes to a halt to celebrate.
The historical origin of THANKSGIVING dates to 1621, and its origins and meaning are controversial for some groups, especially Native American communities. Although it is not originally a religious holiday, THANKSGIVING commemorates a harvest celebration between the Plymouth settlers and the Wampanoag Native Americans, and celebrates a fundamental human experience: gratitude, the ability to be grateful, the state of being grateful, and to live gratefully.
This human capacity arises in those who can perceive the generosity and loving presence in all that we are and have, as a gift from the Transcendent and from others.
THANKSGIVING DAY is a day of family gatherings, an occasion that encourages reconnection and the union of the family, with the dinner table as its center and symbol. However, in recent years, the tradition of “Friendsgiving” has emerged, in which friends gather to celebrate, adapting the holiday to a more open, informal, and modern context.
Although it is mainly a family celebration, the spirit of Thanksgiving extends to the community, showing itself in the many acts of care toward society’s most disadvantaged. Many charities offer dinners to people who are homeless or in need. Food donation events are held, reflecting the value of gratitude in solidarity and generous sharing, helping the weakest and most vulnerable neighbors socially. Also, in the United States, Thanksgiving marks the unofficial start of the holiday season.
The celebration of THANKSGIVING has persisted throughout the history of the United States. Still, it requires us – if we want to preserve its value, truth, meaning, and purpose – that we evaluate, each year, our personal, family, and national reasons to be thankful, to give thanks.
We live in a time of significant social challenges, uncertainty, the exacerbation of our difficulties, and the problematization of all the realities that – to this day – constitute and identify us as a leading nation in the world and an example of political values such as democracy.
Structural racism, intolerance and discrimination, anti-immigration policies and sentiment, the crisis of public health care and policies, especially related to mental and addiction issues, armed violence and citizen security, economic inequality, public debt and the resulting budget deficits, challenges in the labor market and the insufficient supply of employment, inflation, the risks posed by climate change and geopolitical and global competition are issues that concern us all.
The great masses of people living in the shadows or in political and judicial limbo, the loss of checks and balances in the powers that constitute the democratic system, the growing trampling of human rights and citizens, etc., are great, complex, and multifaceted problems, challenges that prompt us – especially on this THANKSGIVING DAY, 2025 – to reflect on the real reasons we have to be grateful.
We search for the solution of so many ills and so much social unrest and uncertainty, the urgency of rigorous policies of justice and social equality, social investment in historically marginalized communities, comprehensive and humane immigration reform, electoral reforms, legal reforms and investment in health, laws for gun control, fiscal reforms, investment in renewable energies, coherent foreign policy, etc. This challenges all of us who make up this great North American nation.
The solution to the serious problems we face, now and in the near future of this nation, requires us to build political consensus, on the part of all social leaders from all areas, and a united will among society as a whole. This is a difficult challenge to overcome if we consider the serious polarization we suffer across society.
THANKSGIVING is a pillar of American culture, a national holiday that intertwines tradition, gratitude, family reunion, consumerism, and charity. This celebration remains a pivotal moment for American society, which – hopefully – reflects both its values of togetherness and generosity, and the complexities of its past and, especially, its present.
Why are we grateful? What do we have to be thankful for? Giving thanks is much more than one day or a family dinner. Giving thanks is a daily human experience that integrates fundamental human values such as dialogue, listening, being capable of solidarity, acceptance, mercy, respect, tolerance, forgiveness for peace, and an abundant life for all. In short, gratitude commits us all to build, permanently, real reasons to be thankful and to give thanks.
