Thanksgiving We have some great holidays on the American calendar. For Christians the greatest religious national holiday is Christmas. While this is a great holiday for us, arguably the greatest holiday for everyone is Thanksgiving. No other holiday brings everyone in the country together like the holiday of Thanksgiving. Families of every race and creed celebrate what basically is the beginning of our country. History states the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621. It is said there were 50 pilgrims and 90 Indians present. It wasn’t a one day celebration either, in fact it went on for three days. These people really knew how to celebrate. There were only spoons and knives used. No one had a fork. Maybe we should petition the government to make it a three day celebration again? Yeah, I know, fat chance. Thanksgiving is really one of our first holidays. It was proclaimed a holiday by president George Washington. It was called the Day of Public Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until president Lincoln that the holiday became fixed to the same time every year. He proclaimed it would always be on the last Thursday of November. I personally think it is better for holidays to fall on the same day, but I also know a lot of people might not agree. They are more concerned with the day than the date and I understand. This was changed by president Roosevelt in 1941 to the fourth Thursday in November avoiding those years which had five Thursdays in November. Now if they would only do something about February 29. I guess that would be asking too much. Our neighbors to the North also have their Thanksgiving day. It is celebrated on the second Monday of October. One thing I cannot believe is a poll which said even though Thanksgiving is very popular, it rates behind Halloween. It is said the very first Thanksgiving meal had turkey as the centerpiece but also included wildfowl, corn, corn bread, seafood, porridge and venison. Today almost everyone celebrating Thanksgiving celebrates it with Turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes with various other foods included. I wouldn’t want to be a turkey because about 45 million of them give up their lives for our Thanksgiving dinners. Almost nobody worries about their diet on Thanksgiving eating on average 4,500 calories. I guess a lot of calories come from all those pies and other desserts. One tradition which is really great and practiced everywhere is the cooking and distributing of Thanksgiving meals to the needy. In this way just about everyone is able to celebrate this great holiday. If you wanted to find the place where most of the Turkeys are raised, you would have to go to Minnesota and only a total of six states produce about two thirds of all the turkeys, they are Minnesota, Indiana, Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas and Missouri. There are certain things which people seem to like doing on Thanksgiving besides eating with family and friends and that is watching football, racing and parades. The most famous parade is the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade in New York City. The parade is almost one hundred years old having started in 1924. Everyone knows the parade includes giant inflatable balloon characters. That tradition was started in 1927. Many families give thanks for the years they had before eating and it has become a special tradition on Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving decorations have also become a tradition with many of the paper kind appearing in schools and on buildings. Thanksgiving is known as a joyous occasion. Many families have created their own Thanksgiving traditions. For example, my family always made chestnut dressing until my dear wife and before that my mother passed from the earth. Now we all settle for the traditional stuffing. Another tradition we kept was the different pies and cakes which appear every Thanksgiving. Tied in with Thanksgiving is another tradition which is Black Friday. It is the Friday after Thanksgiving and on this day sellers both on line and in stores offer huge discounts on some items and it has become one of the biggest days for sales in the year. Thanksgiving is one of the most popular days to travel in the year, so where is the most popular place to travel to? It turns out to be Orlando, Florida. It doesn’t hurt that Disney World is also very near Orlando. Another day which is affected by Thanksgiving is the day before. It is known by some as Drinksgiving day. Thanksgiving eve is the busiest day for bars. The Canadians eat similar food for their Thanksgiving but some of the recipes are different. If you eat a pumpkin pie here it is sweet but in Canada it is spicy. We usually use corn bread for the stuffing, but the Canadians traditionally use rice or bread crumbs. One thing Americans do a lot of for Thanksgiving is travel. Over fifty million people travel every Thanksgiving. Some Europeans are astounded how far we travel because of the fact their countries are so much smaller. Usually when it is time for Thanksgiving the president will pardon a couple of turkeys sparing them from being eaten. Breaking of the wishbone is a lot older tradition that most suspect. It was being done by the race that existed before the Romans. They were known as the Etruscans. Hey if you are worried about cooking a turkey for the first time you can get advice from the Turkey Talk-Line run by Butterball. Turkeys were responsible in a way for the TV dinner. Swanson ordered too many frozen turkeys in 1953. One of the salesmen convinced the company to pack them into trays with corn bread dressing, sweet potatoes and peas and the company had a huge success on their hands. The first turkey which was pardoned was pardoned by President Kennedy in 1963. It became an official event in 1989 with president George H.W. Bush when it became an official ceremony. This year we will have to wait and see how travel is affected by the price of gasoline and the Covid Pandemic, but I am betting it will still be a day with many millions of Americans, driving, flying and maybe sailing to many different destinations all over the country.
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