Pardon Me--Turkeys Really Can Fly

Grant County Journal
Pardon Me, Turkeys Really Can Fly
November, 2011
Written by Janet Warren
Some people have a lot to say about holidays that they think are conjured up by the folks who sell Hallmark cards. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day-- why should they celebrate a day set aside to tell people they love them. Shouldn’t they tell them all the time and not on one particular day? Except, of course, those who do the most complaining about holidays are really just too cheap to buy a card or too lazy to make a phone call. And they certainly aren’t spending the other 364 days of the year telling people how much they mean to them. Me? Just like the rest of you, I get busy. I, for one, appreciate a specific day to remind me my mom might like to receive a card that tells her I’m thinking of her, or to remember my father which always leads to a few shed tears. And I really do love getting flowers on Valentine’s Day.
Thanksgiving is upon us. For many of us it is a day of gorging ourselves in preparation for Black Friday. Did you know some of the stores are actually beginning their Black Friday sales on Thursday? We’ve got to keep our strength up for that holiday shopping. We also cook dishes that have been handed down to us through the generations. Except for that creamed corn/oyster dish my mom always made. It smelled so bad I still cringe at the memory of it. My dad was the only one who liked it. Nothing on my holiday table has anything to do with Pilgrims and Indians except maybe the cranberries. The Wampanoag Indians used cranberries in a variety of ways, including making medicine and dying cloth. I’ll bet their cranberries weren’t jellied and have can marks, though. I prefer homemade cranberry sauce, or at least the whole berry canned kind, but I always have to put out a full can of jellied cranberry sauce for tradition’s sake. Nobody eats it, but I like looking at it—it reminds me of my mother’s thanksgiving dinners without the smell of the oyster/corn concoction.
Let’s play a quick game of Thanksgiving Trivia.
The first Thanksgiving celebrated with Indians was in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621.
INCORRECT! The first known day of Thanksgiving was in 1565 when Pedro Menendez de Aviles and 800 settlers gathered for a meal with the Timucuan Indians in the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, Florida. It wasn’t for another 56 years that the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians celebrated an autumn feast together, which, by the way, wasn’t an annual event.
In 1817, New York became first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday.
CORRECT! Here’s the rest of the story as told on history.com: “In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale—author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.”
And now for the most important Thanksgiving Trivia—drum roll, please.
On Thanksgiving Day in 2007, two turkeys earned a trip to Disney World.
TRUE!!! “On November 20, 2007, President George W. Bush granted a "pardon" to two turkeys, named May and Flower, at the 60th annual National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation, held in the Rose Garden at the White House. The two turkeys were flown to Orlando, Florida, where they served as honorary grand marshals for the Disney World Thanksgiving Parade. The current tradition of presidential turkey pardons began in 1947, under Harry Truman, but the practice is said to have informally begun with Abraham Lincoln, who granted a pardon to his son Tad's pet turkey (history.com).”
I concede a point to all you holiday naysayers….most holidays have been commercialized one way or another. Yes, Madonna, we live in a material world. Thanksgiving, however, is a very easy holiday to makeover to fit your family. I know many of my friends have been doing “30 days of Thanksgiving” this month. Each day they think of something for which they are grateful. They post on facebook or write it in their journal, or like me just take a couple of minutes to think about it. Today I cannot be thankful for the many trees we have on our property, I will reserve that thanks for the spring when they are absolutely beautiful. I am, however, very thankful for the five young people who helped us rake the leaves up! Cameron, Nick, Johanna, Natanya and Garrett, thanks to your collective work we will take full advantage of the city’s free leaf pickup with over 30 bags.
If you can’t make the holiday meaningful for your families, try celebrating in a very traditional way. Most devoutly religious pilgrims observed a day of thanksgiving with prayer and fasting, not feasting. Just sayin’.