Month: November 2015

Put the Thanks Back into Thanksgiving Part 3c: What Items Are Most Likely to Appear on the Thanksgiving Menu in 2015?

Contributor

Which Holiday Foods Are Likely to Show up on Your Menu?

 

Will you choose the traditional Tom Turkey or or something else to star as the main entree on your Thanksgiving table? So many offerings are typically served as side dishes alongside the main dish — whatever it may be —that, because of the amount of food, a Thanksgiving meal is sometimes served midday or early afternoon to make time for all the eating to continue well into evening hours. It is not unusual for holiday meal preparation to begin at dawn or even on days prior. Copious leftovers are also common following the meal proper and may be recycled or transformed for days afterwards. In this post of PUT THE "THANKS" BACK INTO THANKSGIVING we will deconstruct the menu to complete the history of the holiday menu. 

 

>>> Turkey facts – 2015 <<<

Turkey being the most common main dish for an American Thanksgiving dinner today (nearly 90 per cent of the U. S. population will be eating the bird), the holiday itself has even come to be called “Turkey Day” in colloquial terminology. In a typical year U. S. turkey growers can be expected to raise at least 270 million turkeys, which are then processed into five billion pounds of turkey meat valued at more than $8 billion. At least one third of all turkey consumption occurs in the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season, with per capita consumption in the USA reaching almost 18 pounds. The Broad-Breasted White turkey is particularly bred for Thanksgiving dinner and similar feasts because its large size (specimens can grow to over 40 pounds) and meat content make it ideal for such situations. With state-wide production expected to exceed 40 million birds this year, Minnesota is the top turkey producer in the United States, and North Carolina is close behind in second place.

Fortunately turkey promises to be in adequate supply this year; although, your bird might be priced as much 20% above last year's supermarket bargains.  Underlying this cost increase is the law of supply and demand.  The fact that more than 48 million birds had to be euthanized this spring to combat a particularly insidious strain of avian flu has driven prices upward. According to Corinne Alexander, a Purdue University agricultural economist, "This price increase is much larger than typical as a result of the avian influenza outbreak that affected turkey flocks earlier this year." Even though the epidemic has been quelled, the U. S. Department of Agriculture currently predicts wholesale prices for eastern market whole turkey to be between $1.31 and $1.37 per pound the last three months of this year compared with only $1.14 last year.

Ms. Alexander said the actual price paid by any given consumer can vary depending on the differences between frozen and fresh turkeys, organic and non-organic, brand names and the value of store coupons and price specials. "In some locations grocery stores may actually price turkey as a loss leader, and many will feature turkeys at special prices for frequent shoppers or if they buy larger birds," she speculated.

Other staples of the Thanksgiving dinner, though, are likely to be easier on the wallet. With cranberry producers expecting a good crop, the price of that side dish will remain about the same as last year. There are likely be adequate supplies of white potatoes and sweet potatoes too, meaning those food items are not expected to increase in price either. And finally energy prices, such as for electricity and natural gas, are unchanged or even lower than last year; so, it will cost less to cook Thanksgiving dinner — yet another reason to be thankful when you sit down to the table.

>>> Non-traditional turkey alternatives <<<

Non-traditional foods other than turkey are sometimes offered in addition to or substituted for the main dish at some Thanksgiving dinners. Ham, for example, is often served alongside turkey as an additional/secondary entree. Goose and duck, foods which were traditional European centerpieces of Christmas dinners, are now sometimes served in place of the Thanksgiving turkey here in the U. S. Occasionally poultry native to the specific region where the meal is taking place (e.g., quail, partridge guinea fowl) may appear on the menu. The so-called turducken, a Franksteinian combo-fowl created from deboned turkey, duck and chicken nested inside each other recently appeared on the market to the joy of innovative cooks looking for the "next best thing". Deep-fried turkey has risen in popularity because of its shorter preparation time, but this cooking method can expose the chef to significant safety risks.

In a few areas along the West Coast, Dungeness crab is commonly prepared as an alternate main dish, probably because crab season there starts in early November. Similarly Thanksgiving falls within deer hunting season in the northeastern United States, thereby encouraging the local addition of venison as an entree in some of the New England states. Vegetarians or vegans may substitute a tofu-based alternate or a special seasonal dish, such as stuffed squash. In Alaskan villages, whale meat is sometimes eaten. Irish immigrants have been known to serve prime rib of beef as their centerpiece since beef in Ireland was once a rarity; recently resettled families from the Emerald Isle have been known to save up money specifically for this dish to celebrate newfound prosperity and hope.

 

>>> Is it "stuffing," or is it "dressing"? <<<

Before roasting, most Thanksgiving turkeys are stuffed with a bread-based mixture (wheat, rye, white or cornbread) and then tucked into the oven. Sage is the traditional herb added to stuffing (or "dressing" if you prefer) along with chopped celery, carrots and onions. Other ingredients including chopped chestnuts or other tree nuts, crumbled sausage or bacon, oysters, turkey giblets, cranberries, raisins or apples may be added to bread stuffing to improve its flavor and texture.

Recipes for turkey stuffing and turkey dressing are usually interchangeable. Some chefs believe that if it's cooked inside a roast, it should be dubbed stuffing; if it's prepared outside the bird, then the proper name for it is dressing. But go south of the Mason-Dixon line, and cooks will call it dressing, regardless of its preparation method, citing the term "stuffing" as an unpleasant-sounding word. Likewise, dwellers in northern states and New Englanders generally refer to the dish as stuffing across the board. The famous cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, says that a mixture is considered stuffing if you cook it inside the bird and dressing if you cook it in a pan; however, The National Turkey Federation states that the terms are interchangeable.

So, much like the "soda" vs. "pop" terminology debate, whether you use the term "stuffing" or "dressing" is really a matter of where you're eating or where you were raised. But we can all call it one thing for sure: DELICIOUS!

 

>>> … and what about all those other side dishes? <<<

In the United States a globalist approach to Thanksgiving has become common with the impact of immigration and easy international travel. Basic "Thanksgiving" ingredients — or the intent of the holiday — can be transposed to a variety of dishes by using flavors, techniques and traditions from any number of ethnic cuisines. Often, limited only by the financial resources available, the holiday is happily celebrated with a veritable United Nations of dishes particularly when there is an adventurous crowd to be fed and guests' tastes vary.

Traditional Thanksgiving foods are particularly associated with the holiday, and although some of those foods might be seen at any semi-formal dinner in the United States, the meal itself often has something of a ritual or traditional quality. Many Americans, for example, would say any Thanksgiving is "incomplete" without cranberry sauce, stuffing or dressing and gravy. Others would advocate for different dishes including winter squash, sweet potatoes and/or mashed potatoes, dumplings or noodles, corn on the cob or hominy, deviled eggs, green beans or green bean casserole, sauerkraut (especially among those in the Mid-Atlantic region around Baltimore), peas and carrots, bread — rolls, cornbread (in the south and parts of New England) or biscuits — rutabagas or turnips and often a fresh vegetable salad too. For dessert, along with ice cream or whipped cream, various pies are often served, particularly apple pie, mincemeat pie, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate cream pie and pecan pie. Cookies, candy and nuts as well often are offered later in the day.

More innovative side dishes are likely to reflect the region or cultural background of those who have come together for the meal. For example many African Americans and other Southerners serve baked macaroni and cheese along with collard greens, chitterlings and sweet potato pie, while some Italian-Americans may tend to include a pasta dish like lasagne on their Thanksgiving table. Ashkenazi Jews could serve noodle kugel, a sweet dessert pudding, at the same time as other Jewish families might consume foods such as latkes or a sufganiyah which are commonly associated with Hanukkah because the two holidays are usually in close proximity and on extremely rare occasions might even overlap.

It is not unheard of for Mexican Americans to serve their turkey with a Latin accompaniment like mole and roasted corn. In Puerto Rico the Thanksgiving meal is generally assembled to include arroz con gandules (rice with pigeon peas) or arroz con maiz (rice with corn), pasteles (root tamales) stuffed with turkey, pumpkin-coconut crème caramel, corn bread with longaniza, potato salad, roasted white sweet potatoes and Spanish sparkling hard cider. In Puerto Rico typically the turkey is stuffed with mofongo. Cuban-Americans traditionally serve their turkey alongside a small pork roast and include white rice and black beans or kidney beans. Vegetarians or vegans, on the other hand, have been known to serve alternative entree centerpieces such as a large vegetable pie or a stuffed and baked pumpkin or tofu substitute. Midwesterners of Norwegian or Scandinavian descent might set their table with lefse while those from a German background are more likely to include spaetzle. Celebrate diversity as a path toward unity around your dining room table.

And so it goes — as it turns out, there is no wrong answer to the question of what to include in your Thanksgiving food choices this year. Make your decisions based on tradition, personal preference of your guests or innovation; any or all of these approaches will provide diners with yet another reason to give thanks in the most sincere way.

***

Having completed a survey of the history and the composition of our present-day Thanksgiving menu, our next venture here will take a look at improvements you may want to incorporate into your next holiday feast.  Recipes?  Cooking tips?  Yes, those — and more — can be found right here as part of our PUT THE "THANKS" BACK INTO THANKSGIVING series.

PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING Part 3b: How did the Turkey Day menu evolve? (after the Revolutionary War)

Contributor

 After Plymouth Colony how did our Thanksgiving celebration evolve? 

 

Since that very first Thanksgiving celebration in 1621 Americans have spread out across the continent expanding their ranks with immigrants from every corner of the globe. How did historical trends affect the holiday menu? What events shaped the holiday that we celebrate so enthusiastically now on the fourth Thursday of November?

 

>>> Early days in the USA <<<

During the Revolutionary War the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving each year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States. He called upon Americans then to express their gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country’s war of independence and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies.

In the early days of the new democracy many of our Founding Fathers — Benjamin Franklin in particular — had high regard for the wild turkey as a true American icon, even for a time favoring it over the eagle to be named as our national bird. Alexander Hamilton actually proclaimed that no “Citizen of the United States should refrain from turkey on Thanksgiving Day.” As Thanksgiving fare, though, the big bird was uncommon until after 1800. It wasn’t until 1857 that turkey seems to have become part of the traditional dinner in many parts of New England.

 

>>> After 1800 <<<

By the mid-19th century Edward Winslow’s letter and Governor Bradford’s manuscript describing the Plymouth Colony celebration had been rediscovered; both were subsequently published and widely distributed. Boston clergyman Alexander Young later printed Winslow’s letter in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, and in the footnotes there he somewhat arbitrarily declared that feast at Plymouth Colony as the first Thanksgiving.

Later on enough nostalgia developed for colonial times so that by the 1850s, most states and territories were celebrating Thanksgiving locally. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of a popular women’s magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, was a leading voice in establishing Thanksgiving as an annual national event. Beginning in 1827 Hale petitioned at least 13 presidents, the last of whom was Abraham Lincoln, to extend federal status to the Thanksgiving holiday. She finally pitched her idea to President Lincoln as a way to unite the country after the devastation suffered during the Civil War. In 1863 Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Ms. Hale apparently was also a real trendsetter for running a household in her day (think: a kind of Martha Stewart for the mid-1850s and also, incidentally, author of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). Throughout her campaign Hale printed Thanksgiving recipes and menus in Godey’s Lady’s Book. She also published close to a dozen free-standing cookbooks. “She is really planting this idea in the heads of lots of women that this is something they should want to do,” says Kathleen Wall, the culinarian at Plimoth Plantation. “So when there finally is a national day of Thanksgiving, there is a whole body of women who are ready for it, who know what to do because she told them. A lot of the foods that we think of—roast turkey with sage dressing, creamed onions, mashed turnips, even some of the mashed potato dishes, which were kind of exotic then—are there,” she reports.

***

In ensuing years, as technology and transportation improved, food choices expanded.  In the next PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING we will look at some of the trends and developments that have led to Turkey Day 2015 and the options for celebrating the bounty in our lives today.

PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING Part 3a: How did the Turkey Day menu evolve? (first Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony)

Contributor

THE “TRADITIONAL” vs. AN EVER-CHANGING DINNER MENU

When you sit down to your Turkey Day feast on the fourth Thursday of November, no doubt you will be serving some long-time favorite dishes fine-tuned to the preferences of your guests. Perhaps you will also place a few enticing new food combinations on that holiday table as well. Whether you have assembled the entire family as in a Norman Rockwell painting or, instead, have created an intimate occasion for only a select few, you will be serving the next chapter in a story that goes back almost 400 years. This installment of PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING traces the development of the traditional Thanksgiving menu and explores innovative ways to celebrate with favorite foods.

 

Just what was served on that 1st Thanksgiving table anyway?

Few actual records have survived to document the harvest celebration shared by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Native Americans at Plymouth Colony in 1621, but we do have some limited correspondence about the event preserved in historic annals. Edward Winslow, an English leader who attended, wrote home to a friend:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.

William Bradford, the governor Winslow mentions, also described the autumn of 1621, adding:

And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.

It is generally assumed that the Plymouth Colony menu included turkey, waterfowl, venison, fish, lobster, clams, berries, fruit, pumpkin and squash. The majority of the dishes in the traditional American version of Thanksgiving dinner would have been made from foods native to the New World, as according to tradition the Pilgrims received these foods from the Native Americans.

>>> MEAT, POULTRY, FISH <<<

Kathleen Wall, who is employed as a foodways culinarian at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, has conducted extensive research into food history from that period. She suggests that turkey probably was not the centerpiece of the meal. Though it is possible the colonists and American Indians cooked wild turkey, she suspects that goose or duck was more likely the wildfowl of choice. In her research, she has found that swan and passenger pigeons probably would have been readily available as well. “Passenger pigeons—extinct in the wild for over a century now—were so thick in the 1620s, they said you could hear them a quarter-hour before you saw them,” says Wall. “They say a man could shoot at the birds in flight and bring down 200.”

As for preparation, small birds were often spit-roasted, while larger birds were boiled. “I also think some birds—in a lot of recipes you see this—were boiled first, then roasted to finish them off. Or things are roasted first and then boiled,” says Wall. “The early roasting gives them nicer flavor, sort of caramelizes them on the outside and makes the broth darker.” Since the first Thanksgiving was a three-day celebration, she speculates that poultry leftovers were probably soon recycled: “I have no doubt whatsoever that birds that are roasted one day, the remains of them are all thrown in a pot and boiled up to make broth the next day. That broth thickened with grain to make a pottage.”

Because Winslow wrote that the Wampanoag guests arrived with an offering of five deer, culinary historians speculate that the deer would have been roasted on a spit over a smoldering fire and that subsequently the colonists might have used some of the venison also to whip up a hearty stew for the remaining two days of the feast. In addition to wildfowl and deer, those colonists and their Wampanoag neighbors probably ate eels and shellfish such as lobster, clams and mussels. “They were drying shellfish and smoking other sorts of fish,” says Wall.

>>> SIDE DISHES <<<

When asked what side dishes might have been included in the spread of food at the 1621 celebration, Wall resorts to a process of elimination. “You look at what an English celebration in England is at this time. What are the things on the table? You see lots of pies in the first course and in the second course, meat and fish pies. To cook a turkey in a pie was not terribly uncommon [in England],” says Wall. “But it is like, no, the pastry isn’t there [in Plymouth Colony].” Both the Pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag tribe certainly ate pumpkins and other squashes indigenous to New England—possibly even during the harvest festival—but the fledgling colony lacked the butter and wheat flour necessary for making pie crust (that’s right: no pumpkin pie, as such, on that celebration table!). Moreover, settlers hadn’t yet constructed an oven for baking. According to some accounts, early English settlers in North America probably improvised by hollowing out pumpkins, filling the shells with milk, honey and spices to make a custard and then roasting the gourds whole in hot ashes.

So, if no pumpkin pie, then what else did those English colonists set out instead? Wall says, “I think meat, meat and more meat” — meat without potatoes, please note. White potatoes, which originate in South America, and sweet potatoes, coming from the Caribbean, had yet to make an appearance in North America. Also missing would have been cranberry sauce. At least another 50 years would pass before an Englishman wrote about boiling cranberries and sugar into a “Sauce to eat with. . . .Meat.”

As we have been taught since elementary school, the Wampanoags showed the colonists how to plant native crops. “The English colonists plant gardens in March of 1620 and 1621,” says Wall. “We don’t know exactly what’s in those gardens. But in later sources, they talk about carrots, onions, garlic and pumpkins as the sorts of things that they were growing.” New England’s native inhabitants are known also to have eaten other plant roots such as Indian turnips and groundnuts, which they may or may not have brought to the party.

Like most eastern woodlands people, the Wampanoag had a “varied and extremely good diet,” Wall surmises. The forest provided chestnuts, walnuts and beechnuts. “They grew flint corn (multicolored Indian corn), and that was their staple. They grew beans, which they used from when they were small and green until when they were mature,” says Wall.

>>> BEVERAGES <<<

When asked about the most likely beverage du jour, Wall says, “If there was beer, there were only a couple of gallons for 150 people for three days.” She thinks that to wash it all down, the English and Wampanoag probably drank water.

***

After that very first Thanksgiving celebration the dinner menu has undergone significant changes over the ensuing years. Population growth, territorial expansion, immigration trends, transportation technology and communications improvements all played a part in expanding food choices and developing regional differences.  In the next installment of  PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING we will trace some of those trends.

PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING Part 2: Focus on Gratitude

Contributor

 

WHAT CAN YOU DO BETTER THIS THANKSGIVING TO APPRECIATE THE BLESSINGS IN YOUR LIFE?

 

 

After almost 400 years since the very first Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth Colony, today we have no less cause for celebration and giving thanks for the bountiful blessings that enrich our lives.  Still, there seems to be a growing tendency to center the holiday planning and celebration spending exclusively on a lavish dinner menu complete with elaborate table decorations and then somehow turn into a couch potato watching an NFL football game on TV for the rest of the day … completely overlooking the basic “thanks” part of Thanksgiving.   Have you ever wondered how you might do things differently this year for a happier result?  Perhaps expanding your view of the holiday to include opportunities to help less fortunate people in need would be a first step.  Consider some the suggestions below. Maybe these ideas will expand your Thanksgiving horizon.

***

>>> Help provide holiday dinner for the less fortunate <<<

In the spirit of the season one very direct hands-on opportunity to help individuals in need would be to participate in a neighborhood effort to provide Thanksgiving dinner for the less fortunate.  Contributing cash?  Collecting food items?  Donating your time?  All of these options, perhaps on behalf of an organized community or church program, are especially valuable this time of year.  Some local efforts are designed to deliver groceries to the needy recipients’ homes while others are organized around a communal dining site where even the homeless may participate.  Still other programs are website based.  Helping to make Thanksgiving a wonderful event for other people through volunteering can create a very meaningful Thanksgiving Day for you and other members of your family.  If you’re flexible about the role you’re prepared to take on, then you might just find yourself indispensable for the day.

How can I locate the right volunteer opportunity? 

The following organizations can provide details about a variety of opportunities:

Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency, helps more than 5 million Americans improve the lives of their fellow citizens through service by working hand in hand with local partners.  You can search for specific opportunities at the website:  http://www.nationalservice.gov/

Family-to-Family, a nonprofit national coalition, can connect you with an individual family in need year round and also offers various options specifically for the holiday season.  Consider Stuff a Turkey/Stuff a Shirt or Thanksgiving Turkey Drive among the many projects available through their website:  http://www.family-to-family.org/

Meals on Wheels America can allow you to volunteer with a local program to deliver a hot dinner to those who may not be able to join family or friends.  Find your closest participating program at:  http://www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/signup/find-programs

The National Coalition for the Homeless provides opportunities to volunteer at a homeless shelter to prepare and dish up a meal for those without a home.  For a nationwide directory of facilities you can visit the website:  http://www.nationalhomeless.org/

U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers many opportunities to volunteer in person at a government facility where where you might serve as an escort greeter, transport patients or perform other duties.  Find details at their website:  http://www.volunteer.va.gov/

The Salvation Army may be best known for their bell-ringing Santas manning the collection kettle at Christmas time; however, this organization may also provide meals for those in need at a nearby local shelters.  Find details along with other programs and opportunities to give for the holiday and beyond on the website:  http://salvationarmyusa.org/

Any Soldier, Inc. gives you a chance to demonstrate your thankfulness toward troops who may be away from family this Thanksgiving. Create and send a care package following directions at their website:  http://anysoldier.com/index.cfm

To locate even more local opportunities, you might consider contacting a nearby church or house of worship, a social service agency or your county health/welfare department.  There may be advertisements in your community newspaper or online at sites such as Craigslist asking for people to help out on Thanksgiving.

PRECAUTIONS:

  • Call ahead before bringing your children along to an event such as helping to serve dinner at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. Some organizations do not allow minors to serve food or enter restricted areas because of safety regulations (e.g., sharp objects in the kitchen,  danger of being burned at steam tables).
  • If you plan to contribute home-made edibles, beware of the potential for food allergies and/or dietary restrictions.  If you are volunteering outside the home, check in advance for any rules or guidelines and carefully follow those instructions.

***

>>> Visit people in need <<<

Call local hospitals or nursing homes. Ask if there might be a resident who needs company on Thanksgiving or if there are other things you can do to make the day more pleasant and enjoyable for residents or patients there.  You might talk with them, sing, perform or help serve the meals. If you’re asked to stay around for the meal, engage everyone near you in conversation and ask them about their experiences of previous Thanksgivings to help break the ice.

It can be especially rewarding to volunteer at a home for the aged. Elderly residents may be more lonely than usual around the holidays if they have nowhere to go or aren’t up to leaving their home. By volunteering at a home for the elderly, you might find yourself doing anything from decorating the home to make it look more festive to helping cook and distribute the Thanksgiving meal. Giving your time and spending some time with the elderly to cheer them up and ask how they’re doing is also a great way to volunteer. Many people feel extra lonely on the holidays, and you can make a big impact.

***

>>> Be part of a fundraiser <<< 

Inquire in your city or town (perhaps ask at a government office or community newspaper) about fundraisers such as marathons or other activities (e.g., Turkey Trot, Thanksgiving Hustle, Turkey Day Run) which raise money to help families in need on Thanksgiving. If you cannot afford to pay an entry fee, ask about volunteering your time to the event instead.

***

>>> Organize an activity to share reasons for gratitude <<<

Right at your own home in the company of friends and family you can invite all of your guests, from grandpa to preschoolers, to reflect on the reasons each of them can be thankful for good things in life — everything from arrival of the first grandbaby or successful recovery from illness to good profits in business or even a well-baked pumpkin pie. Blessings are abundant.  The more we focus on a reason to be thankful, the more we can share our joy with those we love best.  Consider incorporating some of these suggestions into your family’s holiday observance:

  • If you say grace at your meal — or even if you don’t — before passing the first serving dish, invite each guest to mention a personal reason for thankfulness to share with the group seated at your table.
  • Make a toast before the meal. and ask everybody to join in. Raise your glass with a reason to celebrate.
  • At the entrance to your dining room prominently display index cards and pens beside a big bowl.  Ask each guest to write one or two reasons for feeling thankful for blessings of the previous year and drop all the cards into the container.  After dinner pass around the collection bowl and have each guest draw out a card and read it. Ask the rest of the guests to guess who wrote each card.
  •  Cover your table with a plain white cloth and invite your guests to autograph the cloth, write the date and include a reason for being thankful. Remove the cloth before you begin to serve food and save it to re-use in following years. As time goes on, you will accumulate a legacy of precious memories on the tablecloth.
  • Place a note card under everybody’s plate with a conversation-starting question written on it (e.g., “What is your happiest Thanksgiving memory?” “Describe your all-time favorite holiday gift.” “Which one blessing are you most thankful for today?” “What might you have missed if you hadn’t lived this last year?”), and go around the table to share answers. It might sound a little corny, but you will probably be surprised to see how well your guests respond.

***

 

In future posts PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING will look at the traditional Thanksgiving menu and search for healthy, nutritious alternatives that can add yet another reason to be thankful: high-level wellness for family and guests.

 

        

PUT THE “THANKS” BACK INTO THANKSGIVING Part 1: History of the Holiday

Contributor

Ideas to Improve Your Holiday Celebration 

 

Recently, as I listened to to the first verse of the 1993 Loudon Wainwright III song, "Suddenly It's Christmas," these lyrics sounded a cautionary note:

Suddenly it's Christmas
Right after Hallowe'en.
Forget about Thanksgiving;
It's just a buffet in between.

And then I started to think seriously about the upcoming holiday and wondered what could be done to make Thanksgiving more than "just a buffet." These days how did the "giving" of "thanks" come to be secondary to the size of the stuffed turkey, the number of pumpkin pies on the dessert table and the outcome of an NFL football game? More importantly, what changes might we plan ahead to make for a happier, healthier holiday outcome this November?

In this series, Put the "Thanks" Back into Thanksgiving, we will look for ways to instill more gratitude into your holiday ritual, and we will also share tips to make the celebration healthier at the same time. Before we get to those specifics, though, let's begin with a trip back through time to Plymouth Colony in 1621 to set the correct perspective.

***

 

>>> How did it all begin? <<<

Historically the states of Maine, Virginia, Texas and Florida have each staked out a claim to originating the very first Thanksgiving celebration in America. While there is no doubt that English colonists and Spanish explorers did celebrate religious services of thanksgiving in North America years before the good ship Mayflower arrived, those were isolated celebrations and consequently were forgotten long before any formal establishment of the American holiday. Most people today agree with James W. Baker, who states in his book, Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday, that the now-famous three-day event in Plymouth Colony in the fall of 1621 was "the historical birth of the American Thanksgiving holiday."

Almost 400 years ago Edward Winslow wrote the following words about that very first Thanksgiving:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together. And…by the goodness of God we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.  – Edward Winslow, 1621

The holiday changed, though, as our dogmatic Puritan and Pilgrim ancestors of the 17th century evolved into the 18th century’s more cosmopolitan Yankees. By the end of the 1700s much of the emotional significance for the New England family had come to center more so around a dinner table, which had largely replaced the civil and religious importance of Thanksgiving. Since then, carried by the popular press and Yankee settlers migrating westward, east coast Thanksgiving holiday traditions spread outward to the rest of the nation. In 1777 the Continental Congress proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving, and the early Presidents Washington, Adams and Monroe each continued the practice. As early as 1815, though, celebration of the holiday had fallen out of favor at the federal level and was limited to individual state observances. By the 1850s almost every state and territory celebrated Thanksgiving according to their local legislation and various customs.

In 1827 Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of a popular women’s magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, began a campaign to reinstate the holiday as a national observance after the model of the first Presidents. She publicly petitioned several Presidents to make it an annual event, and her efforts finally succeeded in 1863, when she was able to convince President Abraham Lincoln that a national Thanksgiving observation might help to unite the recently war-torn country. As a point of interest the President actually declared two national Thanksgivings that year, one for August 6 in celebration of the victory at Gettysburg and a second for the last Thursday in November.

Neither Lincoln nor his successors, however, established the holiday as a fixed annual event. Each President still had to proclaim and designate the date for observance of Thanksgiving year by year. Eventually the last Thursday in November persisted as the most customary date. In a controversial move President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared Thanksgiving 1939 to be the next-to-the-last Thursday in November as an effort with mercenary intent to lengthen the Christmas shopping season. Then two years later, in 1941, Congress responded by establishing the holiday with permanent assignment to the fourth Thursday in the month of November.

In a strange turn of events, by the turn of the 20th century, in some ways Thanksgiving had turned kind of creepy. Almost as we do for Halloween today, children and adults back then would dress up in masks and host costume crawls in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.  In fact the tradition of children dressing up as poor people became so popular in New York  that, for a time, Thanksgiving was nicknamed “Ragamuffin Day" there.

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>>> … and where are we today? <<<

Now nearly 400 years after that first celebration between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Native People of North America, the Thanksgiving of Plymouth Colony has evolved into a holiday centered around “going home” with all the sentiment and emotional content those two words imply. The Sunday following Thanksgiving is always the busiest travel day of the entire year in the United States. This year an estimated 46.9 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home during the Thanksgiving holiday, an increase of 300,000 over last year and the most since 2007, according to AAA Travel. Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, more than 10 million people typically take to the skies while another 40 million Americans drive 100 miles or more to share Thanksgiving dinner. The nation’s railways and bus lines, as well, teem with travelers going home for the holiday.

Every year football assumes a central role in Thanksgiving entertainment for many Americans. The idea to play on Thanksgiving started as a marketing ploy to spur attendance at games. The Detroit Lions started taking the field on Thanksgiving day in 1934, and the Dallas Cowboys followed in 1966. These days many people ask, "What would Thanksgiving be without a football game to try and stay awake for?"

Despite today's turmoil and the fast pace of living in the 21st century, gathering together with friends and family for a Thanksgiving celebration can offer a deeply meaningful and comforting annual ritual to many Americans. The need to connect with loved ones and to express gratitude for life's blessings can be found at the heart of all this feasting, prayerful thanks, recreation and even nostalgia for an earlier, simpler time.

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In upcoming articles here at Put the "Thanks" Back into Thanksgiving, we will look at interventions and plans that can make the celebration more meaningful — and possibly healthier too — for your family this year. Please follow this series to see holiday suggestions from activities to recipes, all of them designed to provide you with an improved game plan and a relaxed approach to Thanksgiving Day 2015.