A Time to Give Thanks!

Pilgrims. Pumpkin pie. Turkey. They’re all a part of the last Thursday of November, a date reserved for giving thanks on a very aptly named holiday—Thanksgiving. It all started when a batch of restless English separatists (better known as Pilgrims) set sail from Plymouth, England, on September 6, 1620. They were searching for more civil and religious freedom.

The trans-Atlantic trip was made aboard the Mayflower, a cargo ship just over 100 feet long. The trip was a grueling affair with 102 passengers (and 30 crew members) covering 2,750 miles in 66 days. The freedom seekers landed on the tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on November 11, 1620, and spent that first winter aboard the ship. It was a perilous winter with nearly half of the Pilgrims dying.

As bad as the first winter was, the next harvest season was bountiful, and the new inhabitants decided to show thanks with a huge three-day feast starting on December 13, 1621. Nearly 100 Native Americans (the Wampanoag Indians) were invited by Governor William Bradford as thanks for helping the colonists survive the harsh winter.

Over the course of the following years, the Thanksgiving “holiday” came and went, with new dates and skipped years. Then along came magazine editor Sarah Hale. She believed the country needed to set aside a special day of national thanks and thus began a tireless campaign of letters to anyone and everyone—Presidents, Governors, Congressmen. President Lincoln finally paid heed and declared the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving. In 1941, President Roosevelt made it official, making Thanksgiving a national holiday.

And here we are today, gearing up for yet another feast filled with family and friends. In the holiday spirit, Vantage wishes you and all your fellow feasters a very safe and fulfilling Thanksgiving Day!

Fun Thanksgiving Facts:

• Sarah Hale, the magazine editor credited with persuading President Lincoln to name Thanksgiving as a national holiday, also wrote the children’s nursery rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
   
• The first Thanksgiving had some rather untraditional dishes, including lobster, rabbit, chicken, dried fruits, honey, radishes, eggs and goat cheese.
   
• Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada.
   
• Turkeys have heart attacks. The U.S Air Force once conducted testing involving sonic booms (breaking of the sound barrier) and nearby turkeys dropped dead.
   
• The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed 86 pounds (the size of a large dog).
   
• The annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began in the 1920s.
   
• The Pilgrims didn’t use forks at their feast; they used spoons, knives and fingers.
   
• Turkey isn’t just for Thanksgiving. Over the course of a year, the average American eats 16-18 pounds of turkey.
   
• Fossil evidence shows turkeys roamed he Americas 10 million years ago.
   
• 91% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving. • Thomas Jefferson thought Thanksgiving was, “the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”
   
• In the U.S., about 280 million turkeys are sold for Thanksgiving each year.