- On Thanksgiving, Americans eat around 44 million turkeys every year
Turkey is one of the main dishes Americans love to eat at the dinner table, and according to the National Turkey Federation that remains true. Around 44 million turkeys are consumed every year on Thanksgiving and 88% of Americans claim that turkey is a staple to their feast.
- 2 pardoned turkeys were sent to spend the rest of their lives at Disneyland
Since 1940, it has been tradition to give the president a turkey as a gift. However, officially beginning in the ‘70s, it has become tradition to instead pardon the turkey and let live a natural life. In 2005, president George W. Bush declared that Marshmallow and Yam, the 2 turkeys he was given, would spend the rest of their lives serving as honorary grand marshals in Disneyland’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
- Not all turkeys gobble
Turkeys are one of the first things that pop in our head when we think of Thanksgiving, and their gobble call is probably what you also think of but most people don’t know that only male turkeys make the gobble call. Rather, female turkeys only make a chirp noise.
- Jingle Bells was originally a Thanksgiving song. Created by James Pierpont in 1857, the song Jingle Bells was originally entitled One Horse Open Sleigh, and it was meant to be a celebration of Thanksgiving. However, the song grew to be so popular during the Christmas season that the title was later changed to Jingle Bells only a couple years after its creation.
- Turkeys weren’t at the first Thanksgiving feast.
While turkeys are the quintessential Thanksgiving staple, it wasn’t always that way. At the first Thanksgiving feast held by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, turkey wasn’t to be found on the menu. Instead, they ended up cooking deer, lobster, clams and eels, due to the fact that the feast was held on what is now the Massachusetts coast. Turkeys wouldn’t be brought to the dining table until the 19th century.
