I am enjoying Thanksgiving a lot this year.
THIS YEAR – we’re not doing anything special. We do have to get dressed (eventually) as we are going out to dinner.
*Side Note 1 – Is it technically dinner if it’s at 2:00 in the early afternoon?
But anyway. We decided as a family not to spend the days before Thanksgiving shopping, the morning of Thanksgiving preparing and cooking and the afternoon and early evening of Thanksgiving cleaning up.
And for that I give “THANKS”.
But as I was brushing my teeth this morning I started wondering about what might have gone on in Thanksgivings past. Which led to wondering about Thanksgiving itself.
What might be some interesting facts about Thanksgiving?
In no particular order, but I will # them to make them easily separated;
*Side Note 2 – I got these things from Google
1) The average number of calories consumed on Thanksgiving is …… 4,500 calories
*Side Note 3 – OH MY GOD
2) Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving as a national holiday on October 3, 1863. He was convinced to do this by Sarah Josepha Hale after a 17 year letter writing campaign to US Presidents.
* Side Nite 4 – Sarah Josepha Hale is the writer who wrote, “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.
3) The 1st Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 and lasted 3 days. It is recorded that 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians attended.
* Side Note 5 – it is believed that only 5 women were in attendance. Um….. relegated to the kitchen and cleaning up?
4) It is believed that President Truman is credited with being the 1st President to pardon a turkey. Nope. Sure, he was the 1st President to receive a turkey from The National Turkey Federation, BUT….. he had it for dinner. No, the first President to pardon a turkey was President John F Kennedy. President George H.W. Bush is the President who formalized the pardoning of a turkey in 1989.
*Side Note 6 – The National Turkey Federation is still in existence today – it is “the advocate for America’s turkey industry and our favorite lean protein”, from their website.
5) There’s a reason that male turkeys are called “gobblers” — they’re the only ones that make that noise. Each gobbler has a unique call that he uses to attract females during breeding season. Female turkeys also make distinct noises, but they sound more like chirps and clucks.
* Side Note 7 – I will not be making a Side Note after every post
6) The first football game played on Thanksgiving Day was a college football game in 1876 between Yale and Princeton. The first professional football games played on Thanksgiving were in 1920, there were 6 games played that day.
7) “One Horse Open Sleigh” was originally written by composer James Pierpont as a Thanksgiving Day song, but it became so popular around Dec 25 that the title was changed to “Jingle Bells”.
8) Turkey’s amino acid tryptophan doesn’t actually make you tired. Wha… wha… what happened was after you completely overate, see #1, the body goes into a shutdown mode and sleep is promoted.
*Side Note 8 – Some common sources of tryptophan are oats, bananas, dried prunes, milk, tuna fish, cheese, bread, chicken, turkey, peanuts, and chocolate
9) It’s been surveyed that many Americans don’t actually like the traditional Thanksgiving menu, but eat it anyway to enjoy the fellowship and not feel left out.
10) And in the same survey as #9, the Harris Poll concluded that majority of people enjoyed the leftovers more than the actual meal.
11) According to the most widely accepted account, a Swanson salesman named Gerry Thomas conceived the company’s frozen dinners in late 1953 when he saw that the company had 260 tons of frozen turkey left over after Thanksgiving, sitting in ten refrigerated railroad cars. The owner of the company had invested everything into selling frozen turkeys for Christmas, but the public wasn’t ready for it. So he held a meeting and wanted ideas to use these turkeys.
*Side Note 9 One idea was to save the turkeys for the next year, they were frozen after all, but food scientists in the company concluded the turkeys would not keep and hold their juiciness and flavor.
12) Black Friday isn’t just a big day for shoppers… Believe it or not, Black Friday is also the biggest day of the year for plumbers and emergency calls.
*Side Note 10 – sure it make sense NOW that I read it.
So there you have my Top 12 random tidbits about Thanksgiving.
*Side Note 11 – there is one thing that doesn’t contain tryptophan but might make you tired – reading my blog.
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