Impress Your Family with These Fun Facts About Thanksgiving

"Jingle Bells" might be thought of as a Christmas song now-a-days, but it was actually written to be sung on Thanksgiving Day. Created in 1857 by James Pierpont, it was so popular during the Christmas season that the name officially changed from "One Horse Open Sleigh" to "Jingle Bells" in 1859.

Did you know that the first Macy's Day Parade in 1924 featured animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo, including elephants, bears, camels, and monkeys? Santa Claus was also in attendance, seated atop a sled driven by reindeer atop an icy mountain.

What do you do when your turkey is burnt to a crisp on the outside and frozen solid on the inside? Call the Turkey Talk-Line of course! The professionally trained turkey experts at Butterball have been at our beck and "turkey" call for more than 35 years during the holiday season for people just like you! Every November and December they answer more than 100,000 turkey related questions. Throughout the years they've expanded to meet the modern holiday household. So if you can't get through the old-fashioned way (1-800-BUTTERBALL) you can connect through social media, live chat, texting—and even through Amazon's Alexa!

Although it's widely accepted that the very first Thanksgiving happened in Massachusetts in 1621, some people believe otherwise. Not only do they think the first feast occurred earlier, in 1598, but that it also took place in San Elizario, Texas, near El Paso. According to the story, to celebrate surviving their travel through the Chihuahuan Desert, Spaniard Juan de Onate and 500 members of his crew threw a huge feast of fish when they made it to Texas.

Wherever the first Thanksgiving took place, it did so without forks. The utensil wasn't commonly used until about the time of the American Revolution in North America, although it's supposed both knives and spoons found a place on the Pilgrims' tables. Still, can you imagine trying to scarf down a turkey with no fork?!

It's no secret that turkey is a Thanksgiving staple. However, it's unlikely that it made an appearance at the first feast. Instead, the Wampanoag Indians would have brought lobsters, deer meat, clams, and eels. Coming from Europe, the pilgrims wouldn't have eaten turkey either and would have opted for duck or goose. Turkey actually wasn't popularized until the 19th century, when it was recognized as an affordable source of protein that could feed a larger crowd.

If you love your cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes, you probably wouldn't have enjoyed attending the first Thanksgiving. The reason? Cranberry sauce wasn't invented until 50 years after the first feast, and sweet potatoes were just starting to make an appearance in America.

It may be hard to believe, but green bean casserole, the irreplaceable holiday favorite, got its start in a little Campbell's Soup recipe pamphlet. Released in the mid-1950s, it helped rocket the trinity of fried onion, frozen green beans and canned Cream of Mushroom Soup to fame (and not a little fortune for the company). By Campbell's estimates, some 20 million households serve the casserole every Thanksgiving.

If you think pumpkin pie is important to your Thanksgiving feast nowadays, it was just as beloved back in the day. According to local lore, in 1705 Colchester, Connecticut, actually delayed their Thanksgiving celebration for a full week when a molasses shortage curtailed the baking of pumpkin pies. But the truth is we might not even recognize the dessert served centuries ago: Some recipes called for spiced, sweet milk to be cooked directly in the squash over an open flame, while others directed bakers to layer pumpkin and apple.

According to myth, Benjamin Franklin nicknamed turkeys "Tom" after Thomas Jefferson. Supposedly, ol' Ben wanted the turkey to be our national bird, but Thomas Jefferson thought the more noble eagle should represent the United States. It's said that after Franklin lost out he dubbed the turkey "Tom" in honor of his nemesis. It's a good story—good enough, in fact, that we kind of wish it were true. Instead, the less interesting reality is that occasionally male animals, including cats, for example, are labeled "Tom."

Did you know the first-ever TV dinner came from Thanksgiving leftovers? In 1953 a worker at Swanson ordered too many frozen turkeys (260 tons too many to be exact), so a company salesman named Jerry Thomas had the idea to create a packaged dinner on aluminum trays. After an assembly line of women scooped turkey, cornbread dressing, peas, and sweet potatoes onto the trays, the TV dinner was born!

We bet you didn't know that the woman who wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is also the person responsible for making Thanksgiving an official holiday. After petitioning the government for 17 years, writer Sarah Josepha Hale finally convinced Abraham Lincoln in 1863 to make it a national holiday.

Back before Thanksgiving became an official national holiday, each president had to name it so annually. In all of American history only one Commander-in-Chief—Thomas Jefferson—refused. Word is it was because the day involved prayer, and he believed strongly in the separation of church and state.

However, Thanksgiving hasn't always taken place on the fourth Thursday in November. In 1939, FDR moved the holiday up one week to help boost retail sales during the Depression. So many people complained that it was eventually moved back to the original date in 1941. The Thanksgivings between those years are referred to as "Franksgivings" still today.

Breaking wishbones to grant secret wishes isn't an American original. The tradition was inherited from the British, who got it from the Romans, who adopted it from the Etruscans, who believed that birds had oracle powers. When birds died they would keep the wishbone and stroke it as they made wishes, which isn't too far off from the modern practice.

Every year millions of Americans tune in to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but did you know that the parade has European origins? In 1924, the store's immigrant employees decided to celebrate the beginning of the Christmas season like they would have in their European homelands—with a parade with knights, jugglers, and clowns. The balloons weren't introduced until 1927.

Come on, could you have resisted that face? President Coolidge couldn't. In 1926, a Mississippi man gave the First Family a rather unconventional Thanksgiving gift: a raccoon, which apparently was considered a foodie delicacy in the Magnolia State. But instead of eating the animal, the President named her Rebecca, adding her to the collection of critters the First Family already had, which included a bear, hippo, hordes of dogs, and even two lion cubs.

Millions of Americans tune in to watch football on Thanksgiving every year, and it all started because the owner of the Detroit Lions wanted to promote the game in his baseball-obsessed city and convinced NBC to broadcast the game. Ever since that first NFL broadcast in 1934, the Lions have played on every Thanksgiving except during WW2. The Dallas Cowboys joined in on this NFL tradition in the '60s and America has had its post-dinner plans figured out ever since.

Speaking of WWII, in 1942 London's legendary Westminster Abbey held Thanksgiving for U.S troops stationed in the city. While a lovely gesture, it was also strangely ironic because the holiday was founded by pilgrims who had come to America fleeing religious persecution in England.

The annual tradition of pardoning the White House Thanksgiving turkey didn't officially begin until 1989, with President George H.W. Bush. But it was President Kennedy who let the first bird off the hook when he quipped in 1963, “We’ll just let this one grow. It’s our Thanksgiving present to him.”

Ironically the name "Black Friday" was supposed to keep people from not going shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Even though Black Friday is now one of the biggest shopping days of the year, in 1966 the Philadelphia Police Department started referring to the day of shopping deals as Black Friday in hopes that it would deter people from adding to the traffic and commotion before the Army-Navy football game that same weekend.

But Black Friday, unfortunately, isn't just a big day for retailers. Plumbers report the 24 hours following Thanksgiving to be their busiest of the year, thanks to clogged sink drains, broken garbage disposals and out-of-commision toilets gumming up the works. Before the holiday it might not be the worst idea to invest in a plunger.

Sure, we all love our Butterballs, but there's another bird(s) on the block that more and more of us are chowing down on each Thanksgiving: the Turducken. Pretty much exactly what it sounds like—a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken—it was invented, legend has it, by Paul Prudhomme, the Louisiana chef who trademarked the name in 1986.

Be honest. When you think about the aftermath of a big Thanksgiving feast there's one image that probably comes to mind and it isn't doing the dishes. It's dozing off on the couch. While we universally blame the amino acid tryptophan for knocking us out, the truth is that there isn't all that much of the stuff in turkey. So, that sluggishness probably has a lot more to do with stuffing ourselves silly with potatoes, pie, and the like than mostly blameless tryptophan.

Sure, Thanksgiving weekend has long been the busiest for air travel, but gassing up the car and heading over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house is a tradition for an even greater number of travelers. According to AAA, more than 53.4 million people planned a trip last Thanksgiving.

The numbers are sizable, even more so than those food babies we all sport after the big meal. All told, Americans eat about 720 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving, which breaks down to about 45 million birds that aren't getting anywhere close to a pardon. They weigh an average of 16 pounds, though the heaviest Tom ever recorded weighed a hefty 86 pounds. All that delish turkey (and stuffing and other sides) adds up: we eat an average of 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving and 159 grams of fat.

Except for the chance to surround yourself with loved ones, the single best part of Thanksgiving is...the leftovers. Think of it: turkey sammies slathered in mayo, piled high with green olives, served with an ice cold glass of milk, followed by a piece of pumpkin pie. Whether you're scarfing it down at 3 a.m. Thanksgiving night or during a shopping break on Black Friday, there's no doubt leftovers are the bees knees. In fact, a 2015 Harris Poll reported 8 in 10 Americans prefer them to the original meal itself.