Home For The Holidays Magazine

Page 6 2022 Home For The Holidays Lincoln Daily News November 23, 2022 he Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays are a time for food, family, friends and fun filled with many traditions. Behind the traditions that make the holiday season special are some surprising facts that may provide some interesting dinner or after- dinner conversation at your next holiday gathering. Thanksgiving Trivia Thanksgiving traditions today often include watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and eating a big turkey dinner. However, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Thanksgiving dinner provided people with vastly different experiences. What did the pilgrims eat at the first Thanksgiving dinner? In “What Food Was *Actually* Served at the First Thanksgiving,” Catherine Lamb says, “There are only two surviving documents that reference the original Thanksgiving harvest meal. They describe a feast of freshly killed deer, assorted wildfowl, a bounty of cod and bass, and flint, a native variety of corn harvested by the Native Americans, which was eaten as corn bread and porridge.” The usual fare of turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie was not on their menu. How long did the first Thanksgiving dinner last? One article on Thanksgiving traditions says the first Thanksgiving, celebrated in October 1621, lasted three full days. Governor William Bradford of Plymouth, Massachusetts organized the event “to celebrate the recent immigrants’ first successful corn harvest in the New World.” What was not in the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade? The Ultimate Guide to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade says those big balloons we are used to seeing were not part of the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Instead, there were “three floats (pulled by horses), four bands and zoo animals from the Central Park Zoo.” These animals included “camels, donkeys, elephants and goats.” Last in the parade line up was Santa Claus, which is still part of the tradition. Facts you may not know about the traditions we keep T Continued —