Thanksgiving Day is an uniquely American holiday, at least the one at the end of November. American families will gather for a big meal, traditionally of Turkey, as well as thankfulness and fellowship.
The holiday commemorates the first Thanksgiving, begun by the English settlers at Plymouth, Massachusetts, to show thanks for their survival of their first winter of 1620-1621, and their first successful harvest, made possible in large part by the Native Americans. The first Thanksgiving feast, attended by the Native Americans and the Pilgrims, lasted 3 days, history tells us.
The holiday was made official during the Civil War by a proclamation by President Lincoln. The holiday is meant to remind Americans of their many blessings and to remind them also of their obligations to the less fortunate. Many Americans will spend the holiday volunteering in soup kitchens, serving up donated turkey dinners. Many restaurants will open their doors to the poor and feed them without charge. Thanksgiving is a day when no one in America need go hungry, except by his own choice.
Each year, by tradition, a turkey is donated to the President of the United States, and his family. Until President Kennedy, they ate the turkeys. Kennedy let his go. Since President Bush the Elder, the turkeys have received an official presidential pardon, and allowed to live, unlike so many millions of their brethren.
I don't want to get in the habit of posting too many videos. The one below will be the last one for a while. It shows the pardoning ceremony yesterday of a turkey named Courage, by President Obama. I hope you will watch it.
I wish all my fellow Americans a happy Thanksgiving, and blessings to our esteemed non-American readers as well.
A special Happy Thanksgiving to the wonderful South African families who are today celebrating their second Thanksgiving because of my influence. You honor me and my country. God bless each of you. Ndiya kuthanda.
And to a very special friend who is traveling again as I write this - you know who you are - Godspeed, and I hope there is enough cake left to take a picture of for you. There probably won't be, since I have already started eating it.
Happy Thanksgiving, Max. :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Pilgrim and Indian day, ya turkey! :D
ReplyDeleteWhat is the average life expectancy of a presidentially pardoned turkey?
ReplyDeleteDo they get a lifetime state pension?
Or is it three-hundred and sixty five days of suspece until the next thanksgiving?
How must it feel going back to the bunkhouse on the turkey-farm? When all the bunks are empty, doors swinging in the wind, personal posessions scattered about, feathers strewn, and nobody to explain where they all went?
just the kids, the chicks, to tell of the mystery, the day you saw the president, the day the turkeys disappeared.
Was it the Rapture?
Did they all plan this as a trick?
Will they come back, some day?
suspense, dammit.
ReplyDeleteMust use sple speel splechek.
Really muts, next time.
I have read, and I don't know how true this is, that the turkey lives out its days on a petting farm, presumably having first been screened for E. coli.
ReplyDeleteOh Sheila!
ReplyDeleteCan that really be true? The whole presidential pardon thing's a lie? the poor old turkey is not really pardoned, not absolved of his unspecified crimes against humanity, oh no, his death sentence is just commuted to life imprisonment, without chance of parole.
And petting.
No wonder they stand outside in the rain, faces turned to the sky, and deliberately drown theirselves.
Better than Disneyland, wouldn't you say? No?
ReplyDeleteOkay, point taken. better than Disneyland....
ReplyDeleteI hear that Minnie Mouse threw herself into a trap in order to end it. Goofy eats prozac by the shovelful, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves keep trying to dig an escape tunnel.
Happy Belated Turkey Day.
ReplyDeleteGobble gobble.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for sending Thanksgiving wishes. It was a good day. (Not for turkeys, but for me.) :)
ReplyDelete@Sheila - Thank you very much! I put a pumpkin pie in a mailbox, just in case it was you. :)
ReplyDelete@Kel - Back at ya. A little late. Missing you around here. Around everywhere, actually.
@Soubriquet -
1. The last pair that went to Disneyland lived almost a year.
2. The good news: "Yes" they get a pension. The bad news: it's paid in U.S. Dollars.
3. You wax semi-funny about the turkey rapture. Raxor sharp, in fact. (No, I didn't mean "razor".)
When I heard (on the video) that this turkey weighed 45 pounds, I didn't believe it and looked it up on Google and found male turkeys in captivity can weigh over 80 pounds. True. Or so they say. Not sure what that is in turkey kilos.
@Sheila - right you are. And at Disneyland (not Disney World - don't know about Disney World) that petting place is the tiny Thunder Mountain Ranch, podner. Right next to the Thunder Mountain train ride, so the animals can experience the constant screaming. Yes, the petting zoo comes omplete with disinfectant and free paper towels as you exit. It is rumored that the Disney empire also leaves feed for the various petted animals, when they find the time to do so. This food is in addition to the candy and wrappers thrown by the children.
ReplyDelete@Soubriquet - Did you know that the turkey was proposed to be our country's emblem instead of the Eagle? Ben Franklin thought that would be cool. Nobody else did, I guess.
ReplyDelete@Angelika - Thank you! (Hoping God doesn't hate you anymore.) Nobody else does. Hope yours was good too, though.
@Canucklehead - Well, finally something coherent out of you. Glad to see you've stopped drinking. (I can't remember the sounds llamas make. And I wanted to make you feel at home.) But of course YOU know the sound they make. :)
I know the sound LAMAS make. Under certain conditions.
ReplyDeleteOmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteDalai ones?
ReplyDeleteHari krishna, krishna krishna, hari rama, hari rama, rama rama.
ReplyDeleteOr words to that effect. Those were the days, my friend.