Already a month into the perennial war on saying “Merry Christmas,” it’s nearly impossible to believe that Thanksgiving was ever controversial in and of itself.

While “Turkey Day” may seem like a gravy-soaked short stop between Halloween and New Year’s to the average schlub, at various points in American history it was quite the standoff. And this was long before COVID and admonitions to either forego political wranglings at the dinnertable or embrace them. We even opined that the holiday could still serve as an antidote to Socialism if celebrated as originally intended — you know, if anyone treats today as anything but a day to revel in the four “Fs” — family, food, fuel, and football.

Yet at one point within the older generation’s memory here in the Southland, when to celebrate Thanksgiving Day was to many involved in politics a test regarding one’s belief in federalism. And to their grandparents, Thanksgiving was viewed to many as either “a damned yankee institution” or a means to reach back to our country’s humble beginnings and heal the wounds of the War Between the States.

No, seriously. It was.

We all know that President Abraham Lincoln, during the Civil War, named the last Thursday of November a national day of giving thanks to God. Whether that day was a fourth Thursday or an ocassional fifth Thursday didn’t matter so much for the first few decades.

But as venerable columnist Bud Kennedy writes for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Back in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had moved the celebration to the fourth Thursday. That jump-started Christmas shopping.

But Texans refused to go along.

November has five Thursdays this year. That’s how it was in 1944, 1945, 1950, 1951 and 1956.

In those years, restaurants served turkey dinners twice.

Stores and federal offices closed on the first Thanksgiving. Public schools and state colleges closed and played football games on the second holiday.

In the newspapers, the two holidays were called “Texas Thanksgiving” and (President Franklin) “Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving.”

(This is particularly interesting because Texas, having flown at least six national flags during its storied history, can claim some thanks-giving days that predate even George Washington. A 1541 thanksgiving mass was held by the Spanish explorer Coronado and his expedition of 1,500 men at Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle. San Elizario, just south of El Paso, still celebrates Juan de Oñate‘s public thanksgiving proclamation in 1598. Complicating matters, George Tyler Wood, the second governor of Texas, named the first Thursday in December as Texas Thanksgiving. Here you go, history buffs.)

In post-Reconstruction Texas, folks were growing kinder to their northern captors, but kept one eye open. Gov. O.M. Roberts famously called Thanksgiving the aforementioned “damned Yankee institution.” He refused to issue a proclamation, reflecting Southern Democratic intransigence against Northern culture. This was reflected in many Southern states, though churches had long-since warmed up to Lincoln’s idea of making Washington’s ideal of a national day of thanks official.

In 1939, Texas Gov. Pappy O’Daniel, ever the Populist as his nickname suggested, absolutely refused to abide by FDR’s official limitation of Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November and instead celebrated the fifth Tuesday — wondering why during World War II Americans couldn’t celebrate two Thanksgivings. Does that mean if we get ourselves into World War III we can have three?

More than three politicians during that era began to refer to the fifth Thursday as “States’ rights Thanksgiving,” according to Kennedy.

It wasn’t until 1957 that Gov. Price Daniel signed a bill establishing state holidays, including Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday — to wit, a newspaper in North Texas editorialized that Daniel “went Yankee.”

Today any such reaction to Thanksgiving as a peculiar Northern instituion is met with a blank stare. You may as well suggest skipping Black Friday shopping. Or celebrating Advent, whatever that is. What are you, some kind of Communist?

So today as we stop to say grace over an increasingly expensive dinner table under rapid inflation, ask yourself if your family and friends are bold enough to celebrate again on Nov. 30 — yes, 2023 is one of those years with a fifth Tuesday. You’ll likely have plenty of leftovers, so why not? They’ll keep, assuming you can pay the electric bill and the refrigerator keeps running.

If they’re not willing (or ready) to celebrate “States Rights Thanksgiving” next week, no problem. We’ll have ample opportunity to assert our beliefs in restrained government, state sovereignty, and religious freedom in early November of next year: Election Day, when we hope to take out the turkey currently occupying the White House.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all (and especially Bud Kennedy, whom we’re certain would not agree with much of this.)