Thanksgiving Signs – Gifts For Thanksgiving Day

What do you know about Thanksgiving? These facts below will help you discover more exciting things about this memorable holiday. 

• The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621. It lasted three days and had 50 Pilgrims and 90 Wampanoag Indians joining. Historians assume that only five ladies were present.
• The original Thanksgiving did not include turkey. Venison, duck, goose, oysters, lobster, eel, and fish were almost offered, as were pumpkins and cranberries. There is no pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce.
• On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. After 17 years of sending letters, Sarah Josepha Hale, the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, persuaded Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday.
• Presidents of the United States have a mixed record of pardoning turkeys. Although Harry Truman is widely regarded as the first president to pardon a turkey, this is not entirely correct. He was the first person to be presented with a ceremonial turkey from the National Turkey Federation, and he ate it for dinner. John F. Kennedy was the first president to send a Thanksgiving turkey to a petting zoo, followed by Richard Nixon, who sent his bird to a zoo. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush codified the turkey pardoning custom.
• In the United States, there are four towns called “Turkey.” They can be found in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, and North Carolina, among other places.
• According to research, on Thanksgiving, the average number of calories consumed is 4,500. Americans eat 704 million pounds of turkey every occasion.
• Butterball answers more than 100,000 turkey-cooking questions via their Butterball Turkey Hotline each November and December.
• The tradition of football on Thanksgiving began in 1876 with a game between Yale and Princeton. 
• The popular Christmas carol “Jingle Bells,” penned by James Lord Pierpont in 1857, was not intended to be about Christmas. Originally titled “One Horse Open Sleigh,” the song was intended to be sung on Thanksgiving. In 1859, the title was altered to “Jingle Bells, or the One Horse Open Sleigh” when it was reissued. It became a Christmas carol.