Like just about everything else in 2020, Thanksgiving will be a little (or a lot) different this year. Our holidays have become “traditional” and the fact that they’ll be different this year just makes us more aware of the constant changes in the world.
Thanksgiving, like all our holidays, has evolved over the years to what we think of today as a “traditional” Thanksgiving. But if you look back in history, Thanksgiving at the turn of the 20th century wasn’t anything like we know today — in fact, it was kind of creepy. In many cities, children and adults would dress up in masks and host costume “crawls.” The tradition of children dressing up as poor people in New York became so popular that Thanksgiving was nicknamed “Ragamuffin Day.” So Thanksgiving back then seemed more like our Halloween does today….
I just read that Macy’s Thanksgiving parade this year will be “different.” It may even be virtual — I’m not sure how that will work, but everything else seems to be becoming virtual, so why not a parade? Anyhow, Macy’s parade has also changed over the years — up until 1932, the balloons from the parade were released into the sky when the parade was over. Macy’s offered a $50 reward to anyone that found a deflated balloon and returned it. It turned out that most of the balloons would burst before they were found….
We’ve heard a lot lately about President Trump’s effort to stimulate the economy despite the pandemic, but even the date we celebrate Thanksgiving has been moved for economic reasons. In 1941 President Roosevelt changed the date of Thanksgiving to be the second-to-last Thursday in November as a way to encourage more holiday shopping to boost the economy. It wasn’t a popular decision for Roosevelt — many people at the time compared him to Hitler….
As far as I know, one thing that won’t change this year is the Thanksgiving football games — few or no fans in the stands, but there will be football. The (professional) Thanksgiving football tradition was started by the Detroit Lions in 1934 as a marketing ploy to get more attendance at the games. The Dallas Cowboys started the same tradition in 1966. So you can always watch the Lions and the Cowboys play football on Thanksgiving…..
The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 over a three day harvest festival. The first Thanksgiving sanctioned by the government was declared by the Continental Congress in 1777 but it wasn’t consistently observed until around 1815. It didn’t become a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it on October 3, 1863. The story is that Lincoln was convinced to make it a national holiday by Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote letters advocating for the holiday for 17 years. Sarah Josepha Hale was the woman who wrote “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”…..
The Presidential Pardoning of the turkey was formally started by George H.W. Bush in 1989. Harry Truman is often credited with being the first president to pardon a turkey, but actually he was the first to receive a ceremonial turkey from the National Turkey Federation — he had it for dinner. John F. Kennedy was the first president to let a Thanksgiving turkey go and Richard Nixon sent his turkey to a petting zoo…..
There are at least three towns in the U.S. named Turkey — in Kentucky, North Carolina and Texas. There is a Pilgrim, Michigan, Cranberry, Pennsylvania and Yum Yum, Tennessee……
Turkey wasn’t on the menu at that first Thanksgiving in 1621 — they served venison, goose, duck, oysters, lobster, eel and fish. They probably had pumpkins and cranberries, but no pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce….
Thanksgiving will be smaller and more subdued around here this year, but it’s still a day to give thanks — just like all days. Happy Thanksgiving!!
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