Let the Holidays begin . . .



As we finished the month of October with many fascinating Halloween characters, took down the ghosts hanging in our yard, we hung the Thanksgiving flag from the veranda and the wreath on the door and filled the cornucopia with small ears of colored corn and lots of funny-shaped gourds grown in our yard.

On the first of the month, my son & daughter went to see the reenactment of the First Thanksgiving at the Berkeley Plantation on the James River on Route 5 in Charles City County, VA.
In 1619, English settlers observed the first official Thanksgiving in America with Native Americans. Read more about it at: http://www.berkeleyplantation.com/first-thanksgiving.html

The next Sunday was Veteran’s Day, a solemn occasion of reverence, respect and regard for all those who served our country. My husband and son went to the Veteran’s Day Ceremony held at the Victory Arch in Newport News, Virginia. Songs, Anthems, speakers and tributes were performed, with the resounding cry from the lone trumpeter playing Taps. This is a good time to honor your family veteran by placing a remembrance to them in your Family Museum.

And if this isn’t enough, next weekend starts the holiday season off with a staggering display of holiday cheer and delight at Busch Gardens Christmas Towne. My son is a train conductor on the steam-powered locomotives taking park guest on a Railway train ride around the park. https://buschgardens.com/williamsburg/events/christmas-town/

Then on Thanksgiving Day, not only is it a national holiday, it is also a special day for us for it will be our 49^th Wedding Anniversary. I guess we will be having turkey for dinner and of course, champagne to celebrate the occasion.

Once Thanksgiving is over, out comes the Christmas decorations. As this holiday season is longer, we take our time opening a plethora of boxes filled with Christmas lights, garlands, ornaments, and wreaths, decorating and truly enjoy the bright color lights and festive colors throughout the house.

 So let the festivities commence and save these memories in our Family Museum.                                                           Happy Holidays
 

I want to take this moment to write a few words about the devastating fires in California. In my previous post of Oct. 21: Lost Memories can be replaced,” I wrote how lives can by rebuilt by finding replacements for their lost heirlooms, giving them a sense of place and history again. Now more than ever it is important to consider creating a Family Museum to protect and proudly display ones' heritage. God Bless and carry on . . .

Happy Thanksgiving . . .

There is so much written about the history of Thanksgiving, I thought I would stray away from the usual and put a little twist on the celebration and entertaining, too. Posted on Real-Time News from Alabama, here are some facts, trivia and Thanksgiving Day facts:
 

Blame Thanksgiving for TV dinner – In 1953, the folks at Swanson purchased too many frozen turkeys ahead of the Thanksgiving celebration. Faced with 26 extra tons of the bird, the company decided to slice it, package with some vegetables and sell it on its own. The first TV dinner was born and American went nuts. 

 

Green bean history - Other than turkey and dressing, green bean casserole is probably the most iconic Thanksgiving food. The casserole, which usually contains green beans, cream of mushroom soup, French fried onions, milk and soy sauce was invented in 1955 by Dorcas Reilly at the Campbell Soup Company. The original copy of the recipe is now at the Inventors Hall of Fame.

 

How many Calories? The average person consumed 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day, enough to gain about 1.3 pounds. To put that in perspective, a 160-pound person would have to run at a steady pace for six hours, swim for seven-and-a-half hours or walk 45 miles to burn off the Thanksgiving dinner.

 

Ben Franklin and turkeys – In 1784, Ben Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter suggesting that the wild turkey would be a more appropriate national symbol for the U.S. than the Continental Congress' choice of the bald eagle. He thought turkeys were more respectable and "true original Native of America."

Gobble! Gobble! Baby turkeys are called poults. Only male turkeys gobble, therefore, are called gobblers.

 

Football and food -The Detroit Lions Thanksgiving day game is a holiday tradition. The Lions played their first Thanksgiving Day football game in 1934, when they hosted the Chicago Bears at the University of Detroit Stadium. The game was broadcast via NBC Radio, making it the first national football broadcast. It made its television debut in 1956.

 

Who had the First Thanksgiving? Everyone has been taught that the first Thanksgiving dinner was held in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, with the Pilgrims hosting the native Wampanoag tribe. HOWEVER, despite the popular conception that New Englanders held that first Thanksgiving in America, it actually was held in 1619 in Virginia, led by Captain John Woodlief of Peterly Manor, Bucks, England - more than a year before the Mayflower set sail for Plymouth.

History records that the first Thanksgiving occurred when Captain Woodlief - a veteran of Jamestown who had survived its “starving time” of 1608 and 1609 - led his crew and passengers from their ship to a grassy slope along the James River for the New World’s first Thanksgiving service on Dec. 4, 1619. There, the English colonists dropped to their knees and prayed as the British company expedition sponsor had instructed.

Thanksgiving at Berkley Plantation. Massachusetts-native President John F. Kennedy acknowledged Virginia’s claim in his official Thanksgiving Day Proclamation for 1963 and 100 years before that, President Abraham Lincoln, who visited Berkeley once, also acknowledged Virginia’s first-Thanksgiving claim. To this day, Virginia continues to commemorate its noteworthy event the first Sunday each November at Berkeley Plantation, the original Thanksgiving site.

 http://www.berkeleyplantation.com

And now for another original happening, make this Thanksgiving as well as all the other holiday events attended by family, to begin Your Family Museum. Start gathering up all the stories, pictures and memorabilia to be preserved and displayed. Organize groups within the family to do the collecting, make schedules to meet and assess where everyone is with their mission, for this is a mission every family should partake it, because after all, it is your history.                        Happy Thanksgiving!

 

How to Create Your Family Museum is now on Facebook. Check it our and feel free to write you comments there. Thank You.