You’ve probably heard of Thanksgiving - but do you know what it truly is/what people do for it? Thanksgiving is a holiday in the US that is celebrated on the 4th November of each year.
The notion of Thanksgiving was based upon setting apart some time to just being thankful and blessing for what you had around you - whether that be family, friends, or just great things like being able to eat good food! The idea of setting time for blessings, and holding feasts for harvests were already in practice for the European settlers who settled in an older United States. It is believed to have started as early as 1607 (though this is debated). However, it did not become an official holiday until 1863 by Abraham Lincoln during Civil War times. It has changed a lot since then to become the holiday that it is now, but is still a core holiday for families to gather around the dinner table.
Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s get to some interesting facts (based on 2017)!
The turkey is the main star of the dinner table for Thanksgiving, but foods such as mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn, pumpkin pie, etc. are also very common to the holiday! Green bean casserole wasn’t actually introduced until 1955 and has since become a favorite for many families.
Approximately 45 million turkeys were killed for Thanksgiving
50+ million travel for Thanksgiving (~54.3 estimated for 2018) more than 50 miles away
Typical Americans will consume an average of 4,500 cals on Thanksgiving
Largest pumpkin pie ever made came in at 3,669 pounds!
Heaviest turkey ever weighed was thought to be Tyson at 86 pounds, who was later auctioned off for over 6.5K!
Those are just a few of the many cool aspects about Thanksgiving - and the day of festivities doesn’t end there as the all popular shopping day, Black Friday happens the day after! However, that’s another topic with its own amount of interesting facts!
Edited by: Vibrational