Thanksgiving Greetings

ASPPA Connect wishes its readers a happy Thanksgiving and wants to express gratitude to them — you! ASPPA Connect will not be appearing on Friday, Nov. 27; however, it will be business as usual on Monday, Nov. 30.

In keeping with the season, here are a few unusual facts about Thanksgiving.

• No offense to Plymouth, but it, um, wasn’t the first place to hold a Thanksgiving celebration in the New World. Virginia held its first such holiday in 1620. But St. Augustine, Fla., did so in 1565. And earlier still: Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his expedition held a thanksgiving celebration in Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas panhandle way back in 1541. Plymouth’s first? A more contemporary 1621.

• It’s common for offices to be closed on the day after Thanksgiving now, but the idea is not brand new: the first Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth was three days long.

• The first U.S. President, George Washington, issued the first national Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789, his first year in office.

• Where does Thanksgiving food come from? Turkey: top state for production is Minnesota; cranberries: top states Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington; Pumpkins: top states are Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and New York; sweet potatoes: North Carolina, California and Mississippi.

• Americans eat roughly 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving.

• Cranberries are one of only three fruits native to America.

• The first Thanksgiving Day parade? It wasn’t Macy’s. Macy’s first Thanksgiving Day Parade was held in 1924, but Gimbels department store in Philadelphia held a parade with about 50 people and Santa Claus bringing up the rear four years earlier, in 1920.

• Snoopy has appeared as a giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade more often than any other character.

• The Detroit Lions played football on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in 1934 and have done so on every Thanksgiving except for 1939-1944. The game was televised for the first time in 1956.