Thanksgiving is more than…a time for travel, family, football, parades, and festivities of food…it’s a decreed day of praise to the Maker of men.  

Each year we often begin with preparing a feast.  As the smell of fresh baking bread, roasting savory casseroles fill the kitchen, let it serve to remind us to fill our home with sweet aroma of thanks.  

Embody a joyful welcome to those younger and older faces you treasure.  Give God hearty thanks for the lives you are raising.  
And then pause to drink them in, their age and frame, is their bone structure sturdy like grandpa’s or do they have your sandy hair and sister’s bright dancing eyes.  Thank God that we have by Him our good health, a warm home, an aptitude to be taught, and a grace to pray.  

Listen for soft and loud tokens of praise, spilling around the home with children’s laughter and eager hope.  Thankfulness is the beginning of a good feast!
Now it’s time for praise,  boldly open your heart to declare His goodness.  

Call the crowded home to order and write your family’s own Psalm of Praise, or perhaps a proclamation of thanks and praise.  It can be fashioned similar to that of Abraham Lincoln when he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. (See below) 

Praise is a public exalting a lively worship of our Good Savior and Worthy Lord.
So before you put the mashed potatoes in your mouth wash it back with red wine surveying the remains (like a victor does a battle field, for the spoils of dessert) consider what should be first on our lips.  

Oh that men would herald God’s goodness and love!  With history in agreement let the praise of God be main purpose to why we gather.

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord; The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together. (Psalms 34:1-3 NASB)

 Lincoln got us off to the right start read and know the truth of it below: 

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln


Please consider it your honor, and tradition to praise God from whom all blessings flow!

A Psalm of Praise:
Praise the Lord ! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord ! For he commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and maidens together, old men and children! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his majesty is above earth and heaven. He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his saints, for the people of Israel who are near to him. Praise the Lord ! (Psalm 148:1-14 ESV)