I always feel like Thanksgiving is the second fiddle to Christmas. Thanksgiving gets no respect! That's too bad, because I really love it, and am I'm very thankful that we get a whole day off just to eat great food, and visit with friends and family.

CNN has some funny, and very interesting facts about Thanksgiving, and I wanted to pass them along. You can probably use them when Uncle Bud gets a little too tipsy on Thursday, and you need to change the conversation real quick. Happy Turkey Day, y'all!

  • TV dinners were born in 1953 when the folks at Swanson over ordered 26 tons of turkeys for the holiday. Someone got the brilliant idea to slice the meat, and repackage it with some trimmings. It turned out to be such a huge success that even they couldn't have foreseen the billions of dollars now made off TV dinners.
  • According to Roto-Rooter, Black Friday is the busiest day of the year for plumbers. We can understand how plumbing systems can get 'overwhelmed' after all of that overeating across America.
  • There are four locations in America named after the gobbler, and Louisiana has one of them! Turkey Creek, LA., Turkey, Texas, Turkey, North Carolina, and Turkey Creek, Arizona. There are also two Pennsylvania townships, Upper Turkeyfoot and Lower Turkeyfoot!
  • President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday after being persuaded to do so by the author of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', Sarah Josepha Hale.
  • Make turkeys are Toms, female turkeys are Hens. Toms gobble, hens cackle. Who knew???!!
  • Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the official national bird of America, because he felt the eagle had 'less moral character'
  • Canada celebrates Thanksgiving too, only theirs is on the second Monday in October
  • Chickens have more tryptophan than turkeys, so don't blame being sleepy on the big birds. Blame it on you overeating!
  • Why is a turkey called a turkey? Because back in the day, guinea fowls were imported by Turkish merchants to America. Wow.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving, friends!

 

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