Have you ever taken your children or grandchildren to a Breakfast with Santa event?

Now there’s no need to wait until the Christmas season to visit with the jolly old elf.

Just invite him for Thanksgiving. Lots of people are.

Santa used to arrive on scene discreetly. He wasn’t so pushy.

But things have been changing. People seem to overlook Thanksgiving and slide right into Christmas mode around Veteran’s Day.

I saw Christmas trees for sale outdoors on Veteran’s Day. For real.

In just a few days, America celebrates Thanksgiving Day, an observance rooted in early events in our nation’s history—our history. The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620 sacrificed (and most of them died) because they believed in freedom under God. These events and these people are worth knowing about, teaching our children about, and remembering.

And those early Thanksgiving dinners—first celebrated by the Pilgrims and later established by presidential proclamation? They recognized God’s blessing and provision for our country as a nation—as a community.

Now our Thanksgiving get-togethers are more familial than communal. We’ve turned Thanksgiving into a celebration of home and family—personal blessings—much more than an acknowledgment of God’s gifts to us as a nation.

So my prayer is that as we all gather around our Thanksgiving tables later this week, you might thank God for personal blessings, yes, but national blessings too.

Thank God for religious liberty. For freedom of speech. For the right to bear arms, and the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Thank Him for the blessing (and burden) of self-government.

It’s not trendy or cool to talk about the blessings of America today, but if we want to keep our freedom, remembering how it came to us and teaching our children is the right and necessary thing to do.

Especially on Thanksgiving.

Even Santa would agree with that. I’m sure he’d rather eat Thanksgiving dinner at home with Mrs. Claus.

Want to know more about the history of Thanksgiving? Check out “A Thanksgiving  Time Line and Cast of Characters.”