After eating my share of turkey on Thursday, in an after-dinner haze I idly wondered, when did turkey start to take hold as a staple of the Thanksgiving dinner? Some quick unvalidated research (i.e. Google) revealed that the first Thanksgiving dinner was held by the Pilgrims in 1621 soon after their arrival.
The feast supposedly lasted three days, by the way. Apparently most of us try to cram that kind of meal into one sitting in today’s times.
But it wasn’t until 1863, over 240 years later, when President Abraham Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving, that turkey started to become associated with the Thanksgiving holiday. And I’ll bet most people think turkey’s been a part of the tradition since way back in 1621.
Rumor has it that the turkey and cranberry industries lobbied this into being. What a way to create a tradition! Can you do something like that in your competitive space? Hope you had a good holiday!
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