Thanksgiving… If you say that it’s not a Cuban holiday and has no special significance for you, we totally understand! But we also get the fact that being a holiday dedicated to families, you might be re-evaluating it and try to include it in your annual celebrations, because, why not, every holiday is a good opportunity to bring our family and friends closer together.
Thanksgiving fan or not, here are 5 wow facts about Thanksgiving that will make your day brighter:
The first Thanksgiving was actually a three-day celebration
Busy day for plumbers
The day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day for plumbers, according to Roto-Rooter. Meal prep and cleanup can clog drains and garbage disposals, and guests requiring “additional clothes washing, showers, and toilet flushes put a strain on household plumbing,” the company says. It experiences a 21 percent increase in calls over the four-day weekend than any other Thursday to Sunday period in the year.
Today, Thanksgiving is one day — maybe two if you count Black Friday. But apparently the Pilgrims wanted to party even harder. Governor William Bradford organized the feast, inviting the Plymouth colonists’ Native American allies. But it was only until the Wampanoag guests came and joined the Pilgrims that they decided to extend the affair.
The Wishbone Tradition
If your family isolates the turkey’s “wishbone,” dries it out and saves it for a post-dinner tradition, you’re doing Thanksgiving the right way. According to a breakdown from mental_floss, “The custom of snapping these bones in two after dinner came to us from the English, who got it from the Romans, who got it from the Etruscans, an ancient Italian civilization.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt rescheduled Thanksgiving during the Depression
In order to help Depression-era retailers make more money during the Christmas season, in 1939 FDR moved Thanksgiving up a week. In 1941, Congress officially switched Thanksgiving from the last Thursday to the fourth Thursday in November, where it has stayed ever since.
Benjamin Franklin wished the turkey was the national bird
In a letter he wrote to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin pens “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country… For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird.” There’s actually a song about this in 1776, the Tony-winning musical about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence.
