First Thanksgiving

Throughout history, people have celebrated Thanksgiving all over the world to join together and give thanks for their many blessings. In 1621, the Pilgrims and the Indians celebrated the harvest with a feast that we now call Thanksgiving. They celebrated in New England in the north east. The Pilgrims were grateful for a lot of things, especially surviving the winter, considering half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew died in the first winter. I’m grateful that they decided to have a feast because now every year we get to have a feast too!

This year we found ourselves having Thanksgiving dinner on our neighbors’ boat (M/V Seamantha). Mrs. Paulette and Capt. John cooked an excellent meal with all the trimmings including turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, homemade apple pie, and ice cream! We also brought over some extra gravy and turkey. After the wonderful meal, we watched football and played Life. It was a lot of fun and I am very grateful for it.

Indian & Pilgrim

In preparation for Thanksgiving we reviewed some trivia (http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/mayflower-myths) and learned that despite many pictures showing otherwise, Pilgrims did not wear belt buckles on their hats. In addition, contrary to popular belief, Indians didn’t wear loin cloths in the snow of the north east at the first Thanksgiving. Instead, since it was cold, they wore long animal skinned pants and fur coats.

Flying Turkey

We also learned that turkeys can fly 55 miles per hour and that Americans eat 46 million turkeys on Thanksgiving Day alone! I bet you would never have guessed that most presidentially pardoned turkeys die within one year due to obesity.

A few things I am grateful for this year are, number one, I am not a turkey, even a presidentially pardoned turkey! I am also grateful that we have such great boat neighbors, and finally that I have a family to spend Thanksgiving with. I hope everybody had a happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! (R&R circa 2009)