Wide Open Writing: A Blog of Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving – What does it mean?
In official terms, it is an annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.
Let’s look at some facts around this holiday:
The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 over a three day harvest festival. It included 50 Pilgrims, 90 Wampanoag Indians, and lasted three days. It is believed by historians that only five women were present.
Turkey wasn’t on the menu at the first Thanksgiving. Venison, duck, goose, oysters, lobster, eel, and fish were likely served, alongside pumpkins and cranberries (but not pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce!).
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday on October 3, 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg. Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” convinced Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday after writing letters for 17 years.
Harry Truman is often credited with being the first president to pardon a turkey, but that’s not altogether true. He was the first to receive a ceremonial turkey from the National Turkey Federation – and he had it for dinner. John F. Kennedy was the first to let a Thanksgiving turkey go, followed by Richard Nixon who sent his turkey to a petting zoo. George H.W. Bush is the president who formalized the turkey pardoning tradition in 1989.
The average number of calories consumed on Thanksgiving is 4,500.
Butterball answers more than 100,000 turkey-cooking questions via their Butterball Turkey Hotline each November and December.
The tradition of football on Thanksgiving began in 1876 with a game between Yale and Princeton. The first NFL games were played on Thanksgiving in 1920.
More than 54 million Americans are expected to travel during the Thanksgiving holiday this year. This year’s forecast marks the highest single-year increase in Thanksgiving travelers since 2005.
WOW First Sunday
If you find yourself with free time during this upcoming holiday season, why don’t you join us at Wide Open Writing First Sunday on December 5, 2021, from 2PM to 4PM EST? We welcome everyone into our community as we launch into the creative spirit of writing from the inside out. It’s a magical experience that will leave you feeling thankful and excited to see what happens next. You can sign up for this FREE event at Eventbrite by clicking WOW First Sunday.
The Family That Distances From Each Other Stays Together
I’m thankful to get together with my family this year as opposed to last year when we ordered pizza and sat far apart from each other in the den almost screaming as we tried to chat and chew. We have a tradition of making a list of words and then we each must write a poem or a story using all or some of the words. We didn’t do that either because we were all too stressed.
This year things are a little different in that most of us have been vaccinated. We choose the most unrelated words to challenge our puny brains: cinnamon, polyester, laptop, hula-hoop, and platypus. This also sounds like stress but I’m doing it. It’s sort of like a micro-mini writing retreat with pie and then more pie.
I thought I was smart by planning and placing an order with Honeybaked Ham (later to be known as Honeybaked Hell) a week or so ahead of time. I ordered almost everything on their menu: ham, turkey, green bean casserole, baked beans, smashed potatoes, sweet potato souffle, macaroni & cheese and stuffing. My sister volunteered to pick up the miscellaneous items we needed, and I was thankful for that!
I took my 87-year-old Mom, but I call her Mary, with me to pick up our grub at the appointed time of 9:30 a.m. I parked and told Mom that I would be right back. Yeah! Not! Forty minutes later I walked out of the store with four bags of heavy food. I learned a valuable lesson. If you pre-order the food, you should also pre-pay for the food. Otherwise, you will make small talk with other idiots who didn’t pre-pay as we all wondered why on earth there was only one cashier and a line out the door?
It was a blessing that Mary waited in the car because she has absolutely no patience! I can hear it now “Disturbance at Honeybaked Ham by the mall. Elderly lady screaming obscenities at the workers and threatening to hurl bottles of chutney at their heads if they don’t get their act together!”
When I got in the car, she gave me the look of disdain like when I was a kid and stayed too long at Cousin Cindy’s because I “forgot” what time I was supposed to be home.
Sorry Mary.
Once Upon a Thanksgiving
I’m sure we all have a memory or two of Thanksgivings past whether they be good, bad, or indifferent. I hope most of yours are good like this one.
FLASHBACK to a Thanksgiving of long ago when I was a little girl with a dream of meeting Santa in person.
When I rolled out of my twin bed on Thanksgiving morning, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was extra loud on our black and white television set, as color hadn’t been invented yet. Pops was hard of hearing so we all adapted and grew flaps inside our ears to tune out loud sounds.
I plopped down on the blue and green braided rug in front of the TV in my purple pajamas to wait for the arrival of Santa Claus who would be riding on the back of a fire engine with his elves tossing candy to the lucky kids lined up on the sidewalk. He had reindeer and a sleigh. I didn’t understand.
I always wished myself to be in New York City, sitting with my butt frozen to the concrete sidewalk in anticipation of what was to come. I dreamed that Santa would fly under the speed limit in his sleigh with his reindeer in the lead and I would chip my butt free from the sidewalk, jump up and wave to him. He would stop long enough to call my name and invite me into the sleigh for the flight of my life around the world. Yep, my dreams were a bit whackadoodle even then.
Mary had been up half the night or maybe all night to get the enormous amount of food ready for the feast that would begin at noon. We never knew who might join us or if anyone would at all. Mary had prepared enough food to feed everyone who lived on our road and then some.
There was an enormous spread of dishes and platters and cups and bowls and saucers consisting of mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, potato salad, corn, green beans, baked beans, slaw, turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, cranberry salad, dinner rolls, and cornbread. That’s not including the desserts of pumpkin pie, pecan pie, divinity candy, peanut butter candy and pound cake. And — it was only us eating. Us being Mary, Pops, me, my little sister Gaye, and my baby brother Marc. We were some kind of hefty eaters!
There was not a plate in the county of Scott large enough to hold even a sampling from every dish. And besides that, as a little kid, I could only lift so much. If I had known there was to be so much food, I would have started working out in January to build up my biceps so I could hoist my 10 pound plate to the table.
The whole house smelled of freshly baked dinner rolls and my nose could always detect the wonderful aroma of pumpkin pie — my favorite dish. I always wanted to eat dessert first, but Mary wouldn’t let me. I guess it didn’t seem proper although I am told that my Uncle Wib always did that. I concur! Life is short — eat dessert first!!!
Only one problem remained. Who was going to drink out of the blue cowboy boot cup? I thought as the oldest it should be me, of course, as I had called dibs at birth. Then my baby brother would scream and point at the cup and my sister would just look at us with her giant green eyes. Mary decided none of us could use the cowboy boot cup. So instead, we used the boring pastel Tupperware tumblers Mary had bought had a party my Aunt Leah had hosted. Now that I think of it, that blue cowboy boot cup seemed to have disappeared after the Thanksgiving Day boot trauma.
I remember hearing the gravels crunch in our driveway and I peeked out through the green curtains to see my Cousin Dan in his new Mustang parking alongside the sidewalk. He opened the passenger side door and escorted my darling Granny up to the back porch. I flung the door open and hugged her close – well as close as I could with my tummy pooched out from so much pumpkin pie.
I was invigorated by visitors, but the rest of my family were lethargic and staring at a football game on the TV. Somehow, Mary managed to hoist her food laden body off the sofa and waddle to the kitchen and pointed to the bountiful buffet covering all countertops in our small kitchen.
There were just enough clean golden wheat plates for Gran and Dan to pile on whatever they could carry. We left them alone to devour their goods and returned to staring at the TV. When they were as stuffed as the turkey, they waddled into the den and plopped down on the sofa where they remained glassy eyed for at least an hour.
I didn’t really understand football all that much, but now was not the time for my Pops to teach me since he was basically snoring in his recliner with the ever-present toothpick protruding from his lips even though he had false teeth. So I took this opportunity to turn the volume down so the ringing in my ears would stop.
We snored, we wheezed, we barely moved from our now very warm spots until finally somebody had to go down the hall to the bathroom. There was only one, so I hoped that whoever was in there didn’t plan on staying very long. This could have disastrous consequences.
Mary managed to pack up some leftovers for Dan and Gran and when they decided it was time to vamoose, we all waddled to the back door to see them off. As they slowly eased themselves into the car, we noticed that both seats were scooted a little farther back from where they had been upon arrival to the Turkey Palace.
We stood in the gravel driveway watching the Mustang and waved until we saw the top of it disappear down the hill in front of our house.
Then Pops clapped his hands together and said, “Is it time to eat again?” We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and then waddled back inside.
Memories are Meant to be Remembered
Do you have a prominent Thanksgiving memory in your mind right now? Have you ever written about it? If not, why don’t you try it now? It doesn’t have to be perfect or even make sense. Just get the memory of it down on paper or on your laptop. Go back later and read it again and adjust. If I can do it, so can you! If you want more tips on writing, go to wideopenwriting.com and while our Library is now under construction, sign up to join us for WOW First Sunday. Meet people like yourself. Be a part of a writing community that cares about you as a person and a writer. Sign up on Eventbrite by clicking HERE.
Be Thankful Always
There is always something to be thankful for in this topsy turvy world in which we live. It could be anything from watching a yellow butterfly drift along on a breeze to a friend who recovered from the Coronavirus after being given little hope from doctors. There are miracles that go unnoticed and then there are those that blow our socks off. The sunrise and sunset of each day is a reminder that life continues to ebb and flow as we breathe in and out without even thinking about it. Give thanks for everything. Even when you don’t think you can do it — do it anyway.
Retreat With Us
Wide Open Writing also offers Retreats in the United States, Mexico, and Tuscany Italy. We have a retreat for Men Only and a retreat for Women Only. We also are offering a Writing Residency in Tuscany Italy in 2022. We invite you to check out what we have planned by clicking WOW Retreats. Also, our future plans include offering Instructional Writing Classes so stay tuned for that. Sign up to join our mailing list because you don’t want to miss what is just around the corner as the world levels out and opens for us to explore together.