Thanksgiving by the Numbers: 450 Million Pounds of Cranberry Sauce Created for the Day

From the number of peas canned to the number of pumpkins used, Thanksgiving can be seen in the numbers. Check out these facts and figures.

In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims, early settlers of Plymouth Colony, held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest, an event many regard as the nation’s first Thanksgiving. The legacy of thanks and the feast have survived the centuries, as the event became a national holiday in 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. Later, President Franklin Roosevelt clarified that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to encourage earlier holiday shopping, never on the occasional fifth Thursday. Numbers about the great feast: 114.7 million                       Number of households across the nation — all potential gathering places …

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Hazelwood Patch Recipes For You

Discovering Thanksgiving: A Closer Look at the Holiday

The romanticized image of pilgrims gathered around the table set with an oversized turkey and pumpkin pie is how we define Thanksgiving. In reality, venison along with lobsters and scrawny wild turkeys are the elements of Plymouth's 1621 feast.

"Visitors to Plimoth Plantation are often surprised when we don’t look like a Hallmark card, dressed in big hats and with buckle shoes," said Kathleen Wall, who oversees Plimoth Plantation’s colonial foodways programs. "They’re also surprised to learn that the 1621 Thanksgiving doesn’t resemble the holiday that’s celebrated today." In 1621, Thanksgiving was a harvest festival in the early fall, probably October. It celebrated the economics of having enough to eat, a serious concern for the settlers who nearly starved to death during their first year. Plimoth's harvest festival never was a day of thanksgiving; a day of thanksgiving was a religious day of prayer and fasting. Another historical fact that seems to upset visitors is that …

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