by Joan Inong

Created on: October 28, 2009

Thanksgiving is a holiday for the United States, which celebrates the feasting together of the Native Americans with the first American colonists. With this background in mind, you may be thinking what a turkey has to do with Thanksgiving. Here are a few fun Thanksgiving turkey facts that will help you get around this dilemma.

- Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Virginia, Missouri and California are the leading producers of turkey in 2007. These states produced 175 million of the 271 million turkeys raised in 2007 (i).

- In 1970, 50 per cent of all turkey consumed was during the holidays, now just 29 per cent of all turkey consumed is during the holidays as more turkey is eaten year-round (i).

- The average weight of a turkey purchased at Thanksgiving is 15 pounds (i).

- The wild turkey we usually see in photos or pictures is not the same as the domestic turkey that we serve at Thanksgiving (ii).

- The first U.S. Thanksgiving was held between 21 September and 11 November 1621 in Massachusetts by 50 Plymouth Pilgrims and their 90 Wampanoag neighbours. After that, Thanksgiving was held fairly random (iii).

- The "official date" for Thanksgiving was inconsistent until President Roosevelt signed a bill that proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November as the official, national Thanksgiving holiday (iii).

- Native Americans in both North and South America raised turkeys as early as 200 B.C. (iv).

- Pulling out the turkey's "wishbone" is Thanksgiving tradition. Take the wishbone. Have another person try to pull the wishbone from you. Both people will silently make wishes. Whoever pulls the bigger half of the wishbone will have their wish come true (iv).

All of these facts do not change the inherent way we value and think of Thanksgiving, but it does provide insight to the holiday. For example, the first Thanksgiving was about sharing. Although the Native Americans did not have much food to share with the strangers who had just arrived, they shared anyway. It showed their hospitality. To this day, we share that feeling of hospitality with each other. The spirit of Thanksgiving is in the ability to take that universal nature of sharing and make it a part of our daily lives, even when it is not a "nationally declared" holiday. Essentially, everyday should be Thanksgiving.

Resources:

i. http://urbanext.illinois.edu/turkey/facts.html

ii. http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/turkey.htm

iii. http://www.didyouknow.org/thanksgiving.htm

iv. http://www.holidayinsights.com/tday/turkey.htm

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