Why Do We Celebrate Thanksgiving Day?

November 22, 2017

Thanksgiving , or Thanksgiving Day , is a public holiday celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States .

It originated as a harvest festival .

Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, after Congress requested a proclamation by George Washington . It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American 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. ^[3] ^[4] Together with Christmas and the New Year , Thanksgiving is a part of the broader fall/winter holiday season in the U.S.

The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in October 1621.This feast lasted three days, and—as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow —it was attended by 90 Native Americans and 53 Pilgrims.The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"— days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.

Setting aside time to give thanks for one's blessings, along with holding feasts to celebrate a harvest, are both practices that long predate the European settlement of North America. The first documented thanksgiving services in territory currently belonging to the United States were conducted by Spaniards and the French in the 16th century. Wisdom practices such as expressing gratitude, sharing, and giving away, are integral to many indigenous cultures and communities.

Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607, with the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, Virginia holding a thanksgiving in 1610. ^[ In 1619, 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia. The group's London Company charter specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned... in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God ." Three years later, after the Indian massacre of 1622 , the Berkeley Hundred site and other outlying locations were abandoned and colonists moved their celebration to Jamestown and other more secure spots.

brought to you by Wikipedia

The CLIA office will be closed on November 23 and November 24. We wish you all a happy holiday!

6 Ways to give thanks to your Employees

November 14, 2017/in Best Practice /by Alexandra Zamolo

As the holidays loom near, most of the workforce is preparing for a well-deserved break from the workplace. For hotel employees, though, even holidays don’t guarantee a day off. What can employers do to ease the pain of the holiday work schedule? Recognizing hard-working employees goes a long way in ensuring continued productivity.

1. Create a Thank You Wall

Whether you have limited space behind-the-scenes or you have a whole wall to dedicate to thanking employees, a “thank you wall” is an inexpensive way to show them how much they matter. Print photos of each employee or create name tags and write down a positive quality for each person.

Read the other 5 Ways...

STR, Tourism Economics update US growth forecast

STR and Tourism Economics project a 0.5% occupancy increase in 2017, coupled with a 2.1% ADR increase and a 2.5% RevPAR jump. Supply should overtake demand in 2018, however, according to the latest U.S. forecast.

By HNN Newswire

HENDERSONVILLE, Tennessee—The U.S. hotel industry is projected to record stronger-than-expected growth for 2017, according to STR and Tourism Economics ’ final forecast of 2017.

“Due to stronger demand, occupancy growth has exceeded earlier forecasts. At the same time, ADR growth has been more muted than expected given the record occupancy level,” said Jan Freitag, STR’s senior VP of lodging insights. “The third quarter was difficult to parse because of the disruptions from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, but we know that demand was lifted in a number of major markets as a result. Looking past the shifts in the data, we think hotel performance should remain steady—very much like current economic conditions.”

Click here to learn more.