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Surprising Facts You Never Knew About Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is generally a celebration of family, friends, and food; a time to be thankful for the blessings in our lives. The real history of Thanksgiving is a bit more complicated than mashed potatoes and gravy and pumpkin pies. If you’ve ever wondered why we celebrate Thanksgiving, or where some of our Thanksgiving traditions come from, you’re about to find out.
A woman named Sarah Josepha Hale lobbied Congress for years to make Thanksgiving an official holiday. If it wasn’t for this very determined woman, Thanksgiving wouldn’t exist today. She lobbied Congress for many years to make this holiday official. She wanted to make this a permanent American custom based on national pride. It wasn’t until 1863 that President Lincoln finally declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. Thanksgiving is considered by many people to be an attempt to bring some peace back to the country after the Civil War. Lincoln made the holiday on the last Thursday in November.
Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to change it to one week earlier. Franklin thought the turkey should be the United States’ official bird rather than the bald eagle. By 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill making the fourth Thursday in November the official date for Thanksgiving nationwide to help alleviate the effects of the Great Depression.
The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was in 1924 and featured animals from the Central Park Zoo – live bears, elephants, camels and monkeys, unlike the huge balloons we have today. They did have floats, celebrities, bands, and Macy’s employees in costumes, as well as Santa Claus. About 3.5 million people attend the parade, and nearly 50 million watch it on their televisions at home.
Did you know that TV dinners came about because of Thanksgiving? In 1953, the Swanson Food Corporation got creative with leftover turkey as a result of overestimating how much turkey would be eaten on Thanksgiving Day. They used aluminum trays and created a complete Thanksgiving meal which sold for around ninety-eight cents. They sold ten million TV dinners and started the prepackaged frozen meal industry.
People have been cooking pumpkin pies since the 1600’s. The dessert has been an important part of Thanksgiving meals since the 1700s. One Connecticut town even postponed the holiday in 1705 due to a molasses shortage that prevented people from making pies.
The “pardoning” of the turkey has been an annual White House tradition. President John F. Kennedy was the first to pardon a turkey and President George H. W. Bush was the first to make pardoning a turkey an annual event in 1989, after he noticed the 50-pound bird at his official Thanksgiving proclamation looked nervous. Every president has upheld the tradition ever since.
In the 1870’s Thanksgiving Day football games began, although they were not on television yet. In 1876, Yale played Princeton in the very first Thanksgiving Day game. In 1920 when the National Football League was founded it began hosting games every year.
Here is an interesting fact: The day after Thanksgiving is amazingly busy for plumbers, according to a very well-known plumbing company. So, we need to be extra careful with turkey grease, potato peels, rice, and stuffing as they can clog your kitchen drain or garbage disposal.
The British have an unusual take on Thanksgiving Day, as they call it Britts-giving. Whatever they want to call it, it still represents the spirit of thankfulness and giving.
How many places in the United States have the name “Turkey?” Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
How many turkeys are prepared for Thanksgiving each year in the United States? 46 million
Have a blessed Thanksgiving Day everyone!
Solitaire
A Blessing that is Often Overlooked – Books
Envisioning a better future, reliving a glorious past, encouraging us to dream big, or bring happiness – these are all reasons to find importance in reading books. They allow you to escape into a world you may never know and can even help lower stress levels. Reading draws us into a whole range of human emotions that provide wisdom and value and give us a positive distraction that potentially brings so much good into our lives.
Reading books improves confidence and self-esteem, which provides a platform to pursue goals and make decisions in life. Improving our education in almost any area can only enrich our lives beyond measure. There are so many positives about books that it’s hard to imagine a world without them.
“Reading forces you to be quiet in a world that no longer makes place for that.” – John Green
“There is no friend as loyal as a book” – Ernest Hemingway
“I am a part of everything I have read.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“We read to know we’re not alone.” – William Nicholson
“The more you read, the more you know. The more things that you learn, the more places you will go” – Dr. Seuss
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R. R. Martin
“Books aren’t made of pages and words. They are made of hopes, dreams, and possibilities.” – Unknown
“Reading is like breathing in, and writing is like breathing out.” Pam Allyn
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” – Stephen King
“Let us remember: one book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzei
“I feel the need of reading. It is a loss to a man not to have grown up among books.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them.” – Neil Gaiman
“Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting, and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives us a terrific advantage.” – Roald Dahl
“Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.” – Carl Sagan
Happy reading!
Solitaire
Best Quotes Ever!
Nothing turns around a really bad day like changing your focus to being grateful for what we have instead of what we don’t. Positive emotions and reliving happy memories give us a boost like no other and certainly improve our mental health. We live in crazy times that shout out for positive rather than negative thinking. There is always something to be thankful for, even on our not-so-great days. Let’s concentrate on having an attitude of gratitude, positivity, and encouragement that we can share with others who usually need it as much as we do. Here are a few quotes from people you may or may not have heard of but might give us a new perspective after an especially difficult day.
Solitaire
Solitaire Parke - Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books 