There is no doubt that Thanksgiving is a very nice, family holiday and that it holds a special place in people’s calendars and hearts.

There’s nothing wrong with of at all… except that the pervading myth about the whole feast and its de rigueur menu, which supposedly originated with the Pilgrims in the first half of the 17^th century isn’t strictly true at all.

In addition, the Pilgrims were really a very unsavory bunch of Puritans, who had the leave England,  where they have overstayed their welcome by a long, long shot.

So, fortunately, the so-called Pilgrims had very little to do with the whole thing. As it happened, it was a creation of 19^th century Americans, particularly New Englanders, who wanted to have another national holiday. At the time, we had only two of those: Washington’s Birthday and the Fourth of July. There was also Christmas of course, which wasn’t really counted as a National Holiday.

Abraham Lincoln's presidential order establishing the Thanksgiving Holiday

From the beginning Thanksgiving was a holiday very directly related to food. Something along the lines of a harvest feast, which by that time was celebrated in practically every country of the world in some form.

What really and truly started the whole thing was Sarah Josepha Hale, probably the first female American novelist of note, who has written books, such as Northwood: A Tale of New England and Mary had a Little Lamb. Ms. Hale has written a whole chapter in which she described Thanksgiving in minute detail, with the turkey and the dressing and the gravy and all the other things and ingredients that we now think of as an integral part of the holiday.

Her novel turned out to be extremely popular and Sarah Josepha Hale became the editor a popular woman’s magazine, creating in the process a lot of the mid-19^th century fashion trends, one of which was, as you might have guessed, the Thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving officially became a National Holiday in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln after some important Union victories during the Civil War issued a presidential order, making it official.

We hope that these tidbits of historical information do not disappoint those who believe in the traditional Pilgrim/Indian-related lore. It still remains a very nice holiday. Probably even nicer, without the nasty Pilgrim/Puritan connotations.

If only the artificially-fattened turkeys tasted better…and if the NFL football games were not a part of it all…

We get the feeling that if Sarah Josepha Hale was faced with both of the above, she would have given up on Thanksgiving altogether.

In any case, a Very Happy Thanksgiving to all! Just don’t overeat, please.

Technorati Tags: football, Indians, nfl, Origins, Pilgrims, puritans, Real, Sarah Josepha Hale, Thanksgiving, Turkey

I have said it before and I will say it again: The Super Bowl (in lower case from this spot onward) is a totally ludicrous event. I suppose that it might help the economy a bit, with all those Super Bowl parties, the beer and the junk food. Its main contribution to society though appears to be getting all of those huge, redneck SUVs off the road for at least a few hours.

Countless morons have bought themselves huge television sets just for ‘the big game”. That alone should help out the Chinese, Taiwanese and Japanese economies quite a bit.

Lets not forget the super bowl “memorabilia” – also made in China, of course, that the diehard fans have already bought and will probably keep as family mementos for generations to come. I suppose that buying crap to put into those empty bookcases might be a good idea. After all, they do not look very impressive when empty…

The U.S. economy will get propped up with purchases of millions of gallons of cheap, pissy American beer, equally American pretzels, chips, hot dogs and hamburgers.

The downside of course will be millions of drunken and stuffed rednecks driving home from the super bowl parties in the dark in their SUVs, probably killing and maiming at the very least several dozen people. Let’s not forget the increased consumption of electricity used to light up the parties, power those oversized TV sets and chill the beer to the point, where whatever minimal taste it had to begin with evaporates almost to the point of making the foamy, pissy stuff taste like tap water.

Isn’t it also amazing that so many people seem to be actually looking forward to seeing the commercials? And don’t worry. They will actually discuss them around the water cooler tomorrow. Wonders will never cease…

Anyway, to each his own, I guess, with an important caveat. Tomorrow’s papers will have an inordinate amount of super bowl coverage, instead of something actually important and meaningful.

My fondest memory of one of the past super bowls was a trip to one of the ski areas, where the lodge had a rather nice skating rink, which got so filled up in the evening that one could hardly move, never mind skate. All of a sudden, the rink started emptying at an accelerated pace with people rushing to the TV sets and soon I was left alone on the ice with a very attractive and proficient female skater. We skated and talked for a couple of hours. It was a beautiful, starry night, the ice was in great shape and so was the company. The rest is history. Needless to say, neither one of us bothered to watch even a tiny bit of that super bowl and I for one, do not regret it one bit.

Technorati Tags: event, football, hype, ignoring, ludicrous, nfl, super bowl