In advance of the holiday, Klingenstein Fields Advisors (KF Advisors) would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, filled with friends and family, and, of course, turkey. We are honored and grateful for the trust you place in us and look forward to continuing to work together.
- Although the first Thanksgiving took place in fall 1621, it didn’t become an official national holiday until 1863, when President Lincoln proclaimed that the nation would officially celebrate Thanksgiving on November 26, 1863, in an attempt to begin to heal our divided country.
- The first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade (originally Macy’s Christmas Parade) took place in 1924 to highlight the store’s expansion and status as the “world’s largest store.” The original parade had floats, similar to today, as well as a menagerie of live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. The big character balloons didn’t make an appearance until 1927.
- The first official presidential turkey pardon dates back only to 1989, under President George H.W. Bush, although unofficial presidential pardons allegedly go much farther back in U.S. history.
- Minnesota is the country’s biggest producer of turkeys, raising almost 46 million annually, according to the USDA – coincidentally, this is about how many Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving.
- We can thank Thanksgiving for the invention of the TV dinner. According to reports, in 1953, Swanson overestimated Thanksgiving turkey consumption (to the tune of 260 tons of frozen turkey). A creative Swanson salesman, Gerry Thomas, took a cue from the prepared foods that airlines served and came up with the concept of compartmentalized aluminum trays filled with the “fixins” for a turkey meal. Swanson inexpensively mass produced meals using an assembly line approach.
- For helpful hints and answers to all of your urgent turkey questions, you can contact the Butterball turkey hotline: www.butterball.com/turkey-talk-line, text 844.877.3456 or call 800-Butterball (800.288.8372), or follow on a variety of social media platforms.