Thanksgiving: The Fox And The Boy

by Dequincyx

While on Thanksgiving vacation with the family at his Grandmother's house in Grangeville, Idaho, Cameron, his pup, Mickey, and his two cousins encounter a boy who has run away from home with his pet Fox to keep it from being killed and made into a Thanksgiving meal by his stepfather, the sheriff. And they soon find themselves hiding the boy and fox out at Cam's Grandma's place.

1. Prologue

ABC's

THANKSGIVING: THE FOX AND THE BOY.

Thanksgiving.

A national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Liberia. It began as a day of giving thanks and sacrifice for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Thanksgiving is celebrated in the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.

Pilgrims and Puritans who emigrated from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. The modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is traced to a well-recovered 1619 event in Virginia and a sparsely documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1619 arrival of 38 English settlers at Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, which 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". The 1621 Plymouth feast and Thanksgiving was promoted by a good harvest. The Pilgrims celebrated this with Native Americans, who had helped them get through the previous winter by giving them food in that time of scarcity.

Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631. According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden. Now called Oktober Feest, Leiden's autumn Thanksgiving celebration in 1617 was the occasion for sectarian disturbance that appears to have accelerated the pilgrims' plans to emigrate to America.

Later in Massachusetts, religious thanksgiving services were declared by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford, who planed the colony's Thanksgiving celebration and feast in 1623. In the late 1630s, the Pequot were blamed for the killing of a white man, leading to the colonizers burning down Pequot villages and killing those who did not perish in the fires. Hundreds of Pequots were killed, leading to Governor Bradford to proclaim that Thanksgiving from then on would be celebrated "the bloody victory, thanking God that the battle had been won". The practice of holding an annual harvest festival did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682 and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors and conversely by patriot leaders, such as John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress, each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes. As president of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide Thanksgiving celebration in America, marking November 26th-1789 "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and single favors of Almighty God".

The question of where the first Thanksgiving was held in the United States has been a subject of dispute, primarily between New England and Virginia. The question is complicated by the concept of Thanksgiving as either a holiday celebration or religious service. James Baker maintains, "The American holiday's true origin was the New England Calvinist Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Puritan observations were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response the God's providence". Baker calls the debate a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense" based on regional claims. However, the day for Thanksgiving services specifically codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in 1619 was instrumental in President John F. Kennedy's attempt to strike a compromise between the original claims by issuing Proclamation 3560 on November 5th-1963 stating "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together, and for the faith which united them with their God".

Other claims include an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598. Historians Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida argue that earliest Thanksgiving service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish community on September 8th-1565 in current Saint Augustine, Florida.

Thanksgiving in the United States has been observed on differing dates. From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the date of observance varied from state to state. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century, coinciding with, and eventually superseding the holiday of Evacuation Day. Modern Thanksgiving was proclaimed for all states in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln. Influenced by Sarah Joseph Hale, who wrote letters to politicians for approximately 40 years advocating an official holiday, Lincoln set national Thanksgiving by proclamation for the final Thursday in November, explicitly in celebration of the bounties that had continued to fall on the Union and for the military successes in the war, and also explicitly in "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience". Because of the ongoing Civil War, a nationwide Thanksgiving celebration was not realized until Reconstruction was completed in the 1870s.

On October 31st-1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a presidential proclamation, changing the holiday to the last Thursday in November for business reasons. On December 26th-1941, he signed a joint resolution of Congress, changing the national Thanksgiving Day of the fourth Thursday in November.

Since 1971, when America Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect, the American observance of Columbus Day has coincided with the Canadian observance of Thanksgiving.

Grangeville, Idaho.

Grangeville was founded in 1874 by James A Hackett and Peter Kanawyer. It is the oldest existing in King's County. When the Southern Pacific Railroad bypassed Grangeville in 1876, the thriving new community dwindled in size and importance.

It is the largest city in the county seat of Idaho County, Idaho, United States, in north central part of the state. It's population was 3'141 at 2010 census, down from 3'228 in 2000.

Grangeville enjoys close access to scenic and wildlife areas. Whitewater-rafting is a popular pursuit and the Clearwater River, Snake River, and Salmon River lie close by.

Salmon and steelhead fishing is often a choice of re-creation. Many residents of Grangeville hunt deer, elk, and turkeys in the nearby forest. Hiking is also popular in the Nez Perce National Forest, the Gospel Hump Wilderness, and Hells Canyon to the south of the city. The city operates the nearby Snow-haven ski area for winter re-creation.

Many residents of Grangeville depend on the nearby forests for their livelihood. In addition to timber harvesting, the U.S. Forest Service is a major source of employment in the region.

Grangeville's "Border Days" is a large public celebration on the weekend of July 4th, which features the state's oldest rodeo as well as paradise, art shows, and the world's largest egg toss.

But this isn't about Thanksgiving, it's origins, or the city of Grangeville. This is about what befell four families in the community. This is about what occurred in Grangeville...during the week of Thanksgiving-2024.

---

Grangeville, Idaho

Grangeville Mountains

November 23rd, (2024)

Up in the Grangeville Mountains, on the night of November 23rd-2024, a creature with glowing red eyes was hiding inside some bushes as it watched a male moose graze all by itself. The creature had been watching the moose for quite some time, waiting for the right moment to strike. It wasn't like the beast had never done this before. It had been hunting and killing ever since it had grown up, so this was nothing new to the creature. It was a walk in the woods. The only difference was it wasn't hunting to kill for food this time. It was hunting to kill for the sake of killing. See now was the perfect opportunity to attack, the creature let out a growl, making the moose stop eating the grass and turn to the bushes it had heard the growl come from.

The moose was now aware that it was not out here alone. Something was here with it.

The glowing red-eyed creature roared with rage as it came running out of the bushes, revealing itself to be an enormous male grizzly bear.

Knowing that the bear was coming it's way, the moose took off running through the dark wilderness for it's life, with the glowing red-eyed roaring bear chasing after it. Feeling that the bear was catching up with it, the moose picked up the pace on it's running. The moose had no doubt that this bear was after it.

This, however, did not stop the bear from pursuing it's prey, as it just picked up the pace in it's running too.

The moose ran through the forest with all it's strength and might, determined to escape the carnivorous beast that was chasing after it.

But the bear just kept getting closer.

The moose was soon running towards some bushes, hoping that it would lose the bear in them.

The bear continued to draw closer and closer towards the moose as it ran into bushes. Then when it saw it was close enough, the enraged grizzly lunged forward into the bushes, claiming the moose as it's first victim.

No bear in the Grangeville Mountains had ever killed for pleasure...until tonight.

---

Okay, Disney fans, this has been the Prologue of "Thanksgiving: The Fox And The Boy". I hope you enjoyed it. Unlike the "103/104 DALMATIANS" movie series and "GOOSEPUPS HALLOWEEN: TALES FROM THE BOG", this addition to the Miller pups spin-off show will wrap itself up in just one installment, not five installments. You're probably wondering why i've made this addition an ABC one. Well, the reason for that is because this installment is gonna be dealing with some issues that Disney Channel would never address in a million years. But ABC would. Also, ABC has aired a lot of Disney shows and movies on TV over the years. Especially in the 90s and 2000s when i was a kid. So i figured i'd step outside the Disney box with the 101/102 franchise. And not just because ABC is owned by Disney either.

Anyways, like i said, i hope you enjoyed the prologue, please review it, let me know what you think, and i'll see you in Chapter 1.