Midwest Mary

Americans are preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving this coming Thursday, but there’s no need to eat that turkey, mashed potatoes, or pumpkin pie if you don’t want to. Across the United States, we celebrate with these traditional foods yet ironically, none of them were on the first Thanksgiving menu. In fact, the pilgrims didn’t use silverware as the tools weren’t invented for another ten years. Here are a few other fun tidbits about Thanksgiving.

• Most of us consume about 4,500 calories on this day.
• Apple pie is more popular for Thanksgiving than pumpkin pie.
• Female turkeys don’t gobble.
• The first Thanksgiving in the New Land was celebrated in 1619. Most of those early colonists died from a European pandemic.
• In October of 1621, the second harvest festival was celebrated and included 50 colonists and 90 Wampanoag Indians.
• Pilgrims did not wear silver buckles on their shoes or hats as we typically portray them. The current fashion was to wear bright-colored clothing.
• There are four towns in the U.S. named Turkey—Turkey Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina.
• The first Thanksgiving NFL game was played in 1920.
• Composer James Pierpont intended the song, “Jingle Bells,” to be a Thanksgiving Day song rather than Christmas as we commonly associate it with.

And lastly,

• Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Water Cleaning company calls the day after Thanksgiving “Brown Friday” because of how busy they are that day flushing drainage pipes.

Find more fun facts about Thanksgiving by going to WorldStride and History Hit.

*

Photo and Post ©2023, Mary K. Doyle

Holidays add stress to a caregiver’s responsibilities. Offer them ways to care for themself while caring for their loved one with the book Inspired Caregiving. Weekly Morale Builders.