Since 1621, Americans gather around their dinner tables on the fourth Thursday of November to give thanks for their blessings, families, and friends. Because of the “First Thanksgiving” celebrated by the pilgrims in 1621 after their first harvest on new land and President Lincoln’s federal decree in 1864, Thanksgiving has become an American tradition each year.
Every year, millions of Americans spend Thanksgiving by feasting with family and friends. A traditional Thanksgiving dinner is consisted of a turkey, sorts of potatoes, green beans and cranberries – some of the same food the pilgrims enjoyed hundreds of years ago. The statistics of Thanksgiving are mind-blowing, but why wouldn’t they be? There are 316.1 million United States citizens, with about 88% of whom eat turkey on the last Thursday of November. On Thanksgiving 2013, 51 million turkeys were consumed across America. Along with that, Thanksgiving food shopping rung in at $2,375,000,000. There was also about 656,340 tons of green beans produced, 2.4 billion pounds of sweet potatoes, and 7.5 million barrels of cranberries. Besides the amounts of food produced for Thanksgiving, the statistics for traveling is outstanding. About 46 million people traveled to celebrate Thanksgiving, and 50 million watched the Macy’s Day Parade on television. After the feasting ended, almost 92.1 million people attended Black Friday shopping.
The numbers prove it; America loves Thanksgiving. So now, if you think your numbers are larger after Thanksgiving, I’m positive they aren’t as large as these numbers!