The Story of Thanksgiving
The concept of a day of thanksgiving has been around the
continent since the 16th Century. Explorer Martin
Frobisher held a thanksgiving day in 1578, and the French,
Spaniards, and English settlers also held thanksgiving
feasts throughout the continent, as did indigenous people.
Days of thanksgiving were sporadically given throughout
the early days of both the United States and Canada, with
several of the early U.S. Presidents issuing Thanksgiving
proclamations, and they were particularly popular in the
New England states. In the early 1860s, during the midst
of the Civil War, author Sarah Josepha Hale drew
particular attention (perhaps somewhat unwarranted) to one
such Thanksgiving celebration, the story of the
"Pilgrims." President Lincoln capitalized on Hale's
suggestion and made Thanksgiving an unofficial national
holiday, which most states made official. (The Southern
states had opposed a day of Thanksgiving prior to this,
but had seceded to form the Confederacy and were thus
unable to object; they eventually accepted the holiday
during Reconstruction.) This is the story of the
(erroneous) "First Thanksgiving" commonly associated with
the holiday today:
The story begins in England. A religious group
known today as the Pilgrims were disillusioned with the
Church of England and wanted to separate. Efforts to do
this in England were futile due to the Crown's fierce
resistance, so they moved at first to Holland until they
were able to raise enough funds for a ship to the New
World of America, which had been successfully settled
since 1607. According to records, the group planned to
experiment with a communist society where all the raised
goods would be placed into a common store. In 1620, they
landed and attempted to implement this economic system.
Food shortages abounded, winter was long, and many died.
The system was scrapped in the spring of 1621 and instead
replaced it with open markets and an "every man for
himself" system. With a market system in place, and a
little bit of help from some gracious natives, the food
supply grew to much higher levels and thus a feast was
declared after harvest. The Pilgrim community was a devout
one and thus gratitude to God was paid on this day of
thanksgiving. (The Pilgrims did not wear tall steeple hats
or buckles; the image was a 19th-century invention.
Instead, for formal wear, most Pilgrims wore
Elizabethan-era doublets with jerkins and ruff collars.)
Canadians do not associate this story with their day of
Thanksgiving.
The association of Thanksgiving with a particular date
differed in each country. In the United States, the
holiday became associated with the last Thursday in
November by the start of the 20th Century. In 1939,
then-President Franklin Roosevelt, in an attempt at
economic stimulus and to extend the holiday shopping
season by a week, tried to move the holiday to the
penultimate Thursday in November. Since it was still
mostly a state holiday, not all states abided by
Roosevelt's suggestion (hence causing some confusion), but
in 1942, Thanksgiving officially became a national
holiday, being set on the fourth Thursday in November in a
compromise. (Most Thanksgiving activities were suspended
for World War II, and the full effect of the new
Thanksgiving took until about 1945 or 1946 to set in.) In
Canada, Thanksgiving was associated with Armistice Day
(U.S. Veterans Day), which was set for the second Monday
in November, in 1921. The two holidays were split in 1931,
with Armistice Day getting fixed at November 11 and
Thanksgiving set for the second weekend in October. The
earlier date is mainly because of earlier, longer winters
in Canada compared to the United States. Since the U.S.
set Columbus Day as a floating holiday in 1971 as part of
the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, Columbus Day and Canadian
Thanksgiving have landed on the same day. As such, some
people near the Canadian border (myself included) prefer
to celebrate the Canadian Thanksgiving over Columbus Day,
due to the fact that Columbus didn't reach the American
continent until several years after the day for which
Columbus Day is commemorated.
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The Thanksgiving Tradition
In the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is
traditionally a five-day weekend, from the Wednesday
before through the Sunday after (although some businesses
only give the Thursday and Friday off). In Canada, where
the holiday is celebrated on a Monday, it is a three-day
weekend, with the holiday itself being celebrated on the
last day. The holiday is among the most observed holidays
in the American calendar, with almost all businesses
closing down at least on Thanksgiving Day itself, and its
comparatively secular and generic nature makes it an
acceptable celebration for Christians and non-Christians
alike. Also, Thanksgiving itself does not seem to have
been commercialized to the degree of its nearby holiday,
Christmas.
Usually the holiday begins the day before with
preparations, either with travel (the AAA has determined
that Thanksgiving weekend represents a peak in road
travel, rivaled only by the summer driving season, despite
much poorer weather) or by preparing the litany of food
that serves as part of the celebration. The token
Thanksgiving turkey (see "Food" below) is often left to
roast overnight, or at least to thaw before being put into
the oven Thanksgiving morning. The next morning, often
some early breakfast is made (such as a pie), and any
remaining dishes that need to be prepared are done at this
time. In numerous jurisdictions, particularly in the New
England and mid-Atlantic states, the local high school
football teams play high-profile rivalry games on
Thanksgiving morning (some of these games used to be
nationally televised, but thanks to ESPN's decision to
fill their Thanksgiving schedules with their own
self-created college basketball tournaments, that's no
longer the case). At 9:00 am (ET US), the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade (among many other local parades)
takes place and is televised across the country (see
"Media Guide" below), featuring various marching bands,
balloons, floats, and Broadway performances and concluding
with the Rockettes, Santa Claus and his reindeer right
around noon ET. (In Canada, the rough equivalent of this
is the Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest Parade, which has a
distinctly German flavor, lasts only one hour, and starts
at noon.) At this time, the NFL takes over the ceremonies
with what is now a tripleheader slate of games, the first
two featuring the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys,
with each taking on an AFC and an NFC team, rotating
between the two each year. Canadians also have football on
Thanksgiving, with the Montreal Alouettes hosting an early
afternoon CFL Thanksgiving game and a rotating game in the
west in the late afternoon. Some time during all the
football, the main course is served (see "Food" below),
and when all is said and done, everyone can kick back,
relax, and digest all that food. (Note: it is not
necessarily true that the tryptophan in turkey is what
causes people to become sleepy; in fact, it is usually the
sheer volume of food that requires digesting that wears
one down.)
Footraces are also popular on Thanksgiving in some
cities, usually in the morning, with "Turkey Trots" in
Dallas and Buffalo drawing over 12,000 runners each year.
There also exist Thanksgiving races in Berwick, PA (the
Run for the Diamonds), Andover, MA (the Feaster Five Road
Race), and Atlanta, GA (the Atlanta Marathon), among
others in Detroit, Houston, Fort Wayne, IN; Akron, OH;
Mansaquan, NJ; and Philadelphia. In Irwindale, CA, an
automobile race is held each Thanksgiving night, while in
Cuero, TX, live turkeys do the racing. Turkey bowling is
another, how do I put this?, unorthodox Thanksgiving
tradition that has arisen in recent years, in which frozen
turkeys are rolled down grocery store aisles to knock down
bottles of soda.
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Parades
Canadian Thanksgiving:
Weekend prior to U.S. Thanksgiving:
U.S. Thanksgiving Day (all times Eastern Time)
- New York City: 9 a.m. (NBC,
CBS, WINS)
Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade
- Philadelphia, PA: 9 a.m. (WPVI)
6ABC
IKEA Thanksgiving Day Parade
- Charlotte, NC: 9 a.m. (WBTV)
Belk
Carolina's Carrousel Parade
- Detroit, MI: 10 a.m. (WDIV)
America's
Thanksgiving Parade
- Chicago, IL: 10 a.m. (WGN-TV,
WGN America)
McDonald's
Thanksgiving Parade
- St. Louis, MO: 10 a.m. (KMOV)
Ameren
Missouri Thanksgiving Day Parade
- Houston, TX: 10 a.m. (KHOU)
H-E-B Holiday Parade
- El Paso, TX: 12 noon (KTSM)
First
Light Federal Credit Union Sun Bowl Parade
- Fountain Hills, AZ: 12 noon
Parada de los Cerros
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Food
Of course, the most common food that is ever eaten during
the Thanksgiving holiday is roast turkey. Generally, how one
roasts a turkey is by thawing it (using the "cold water"
method, this takes about 30 minutes per pound, so obviously
an overnight job), removing the neck and giblets, adding
some crouton-based stuffing, and cooking the turkey at
325°F for 15 minutes per pound until the meat is at
180°F. Further details can be found from this Web site.
In a crisis, call the Butterball Turkey Talk Hotline at 1-800-BUTTERBALL (that
is, 1-800-288-8372).
Another hotline that may come in handy is the Betty Crocker
hotline (1-888-ASK-BETTY
or 1-888-275-2388), for your non-turkey baking needs.
Other traditional Thanksgiving foods include:
- Green bean casserole (recipe)
A recipe using green beans, cream of mushroom soup, and
fried onions. Nothing says "happy holidays" more, other
than perhaps the turkey itself.
- Cranberry sauce
Available in the can in whole berry or jelly varieties.
Apparently it can be made from scratch, but unless you
really are into homemade stuff (and that's not
necessarily a bad thing, especially on Thanksgiving),
it's not particularly necessary-- or common.
- Vegetables
- Yams (recipe)
Gotta have yams. Prepare them with brown sugar and
vanilla for a Thanksgiving classic. (OK, technically
they're called "sweet potatoes," but 1] they're not
potatoes and 2] yam is more fun to say.)
- Squash
Acorn squash and butternut squash are the two most
common varieties. Split the squash in half, sprinkle
some brown sugar and honey or syrup in the cavities,
and bake at 400°F for roughly an hour.
- Mashed potatoes
Pillowy mounds... Well, you have to do something with
the turkey gravy.
- Pumpkin pie
Pumpkin puree is mixed with sugar, milk and spices and
baked in a pie crust. Other pies are popular as well.
- Other traditional family favorites
By the way, don't forget the leftovers. You can make turkey
soup, turkey sandwiches, all sorts of items with a used
turkey. The meat usually lasts a couple of days in the
fridge.
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On the radio
Friday, 11/18 (or slightly before): Wall-to-wall Christmas
music begins on most "adult contemporary" stations.
Wednesday, 11/23: The Rush Limbaugh Show airs its annual
broadcast of "The Real Story of Thanksgiving," from the book
See, I Told You So.
Thursday, 11/24, 9:00 a.m.
(here), 12:00 noon and 6:00 p.m. (most other
stations): "The Alice's Restaurant Massacree" by Arlo
Guthrie, played primarily on classic rock radio stations.
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On cable TV
All marathon programming is listed in the order it appears
on the Atlantic Broadband cable lineup for Little Valley,
NY, with channels not on the ABB lineup listed afterward.
Sports programming is listed at the end. The marathon
listings specifically refer to marathons that air on
Thanksgiving itself; although I notice quite a few having
marthons that weekend, I'm not making a big deal of looking
for them.
- A&E: The First 48
- style.: Supernanny
- History: Ice Road Truckers: Deadliest Roads
- Lifetime: Christmas movies
- Oxygen: Roseanne
- TNT: Bones
- Speed: Monster Jam; Dumbest Stuff on Wheels
- FX: DreamWorks animated movies
- USA: NCIS
- TV Land: The Dick Van Dyke Show; The Andy Griffith
Show
- Syfy: James Bond films
- MTV: FriendZone, Beavis and Butt-Head
- CMT: Top 30 Family Videos for
Thanksgiving
- Hallmark Channel: Thanksgiving movies
- OWN: Welcome to Sweetie Pie's
- Food Network: See Food
Network Thanksgiving Page
- TLC: Cake Boss
- Travel: Man vs. Food
- Discovery: American Guns, World
Championship Punkin Chunkin
- Animal Planet: Hillbilly Handfishin'; Tanked
- Disney Channel: Disney animated
classics
- Cartoon Network: Tom and Jerry
- Weather Channel: Coast Guard Alaska
- TruTV: Black Gold; World's Dumbest Criminals
- The Hub: Muppets movies;
Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?
- Disney XD: Kickin' It
- BBC America: Star Trek: The Next Generation
- Planet Green: Mall Cops
- Military Channel: World War II in Color
- DIY Network: Cool Tools
- GSN: Deal or No Deal
- Chiller: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- IFC: Arrested Development
- WE: Braxton Family Values
- MTV2: Run's House, Martin
- Science: How It's Made; World
Championship Punkin Chunkin
- History-2: The States
- Antenna TV: Three's Company
- BET: My Wife and Kids
- GAC: Top 50 Music Videos of the '90s
- ESPNU: Turkey Day Classic, Tuskegee vs.
Alabama State, 4:00 p.m.
- ESPN: Lone Star Showdown, Texas vs.
Texas A&M, 8:00 p.m.
- ESPN Networks: Old Spice Classic and 76
Classic, all day
- NFL Network: San Francisco @ Baltimore,
7:30 p.m.
- Versus: Battle 4 Atlantis, afternoon
- TNT: NBA Doubleheader** (canceled)
ESPN3 will carry the sports
events on ESPN networks.
**Due to a labor dispute, the NBA has canceled all games
through November 28, including Thanksgiving. Had the games
been played, Atlanta would have hosted Philadelphia, while
the Clippers hosted New Orleans in the nightcap.
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