Random Biggest Thanksgiving Myths & Legends (13 items)

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  (#7) The Thanksgiving Menu

  THE MYTH: We eat turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving because the Pilgrims ate it.

  THE REALITY: Our traditional Thanksgiving menu is based much more on what’s generally served at New England fall festivals, and has become greatly customized by region. Depictions of the original Thanksgiving include mentions of fowl, but not turkey in general. Pumpkin might have been served, but not in any kind of congealed pie form, while local vegetables and fish would have had a prominent place at the feast.

  And, sweet potatoes weren’t introduced into American diets until long after the Pilgrims landed in New England, being popularized by Spanish settlers returning to Europe from South America.
  
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  (#5) A Huge Sit-Down Dinner

  THE MYTH: Natives and pilgrims sat down to dinner together at a huge table groaning with food and utensils.

  THE REALITY: The harvest festival of 1621 was a three-day affair, with people coming and going as they pleased, eating wherever they found room, probably with their hands. The colonists in the New World certainly didn’t bring fancy china and silver with them, and would have made food that could be picked up and carried around.
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  (#11) Stealth Halal Turkeys

  THE MYTH: Turkey companies are bowing to pressure from Muslims and secretly giving freedom-loving Americans halal birds killed in compliance with Islamic dietary laws.

  THE REALITY: The “stealth halal turkey” meme originates with the writer and noted opponent of all things Islam, Pamela Geller. On her website, americanthinker.com, Geller writes of militant Islam “on the march” as personified by turkeys being slaughtered to confirm to Islamic halal specifications. Geller reasoned that we were all secretly eating terrorist turkey, and to boycott Butterball specifically.

  However, Geller misses a number of points in her ramble, the least of which is that Muslim dietary laws are almost exactly the same as Jewish dietary laws, and few people outside of the most ardent white supremacists would balk at the idea of eating a turkey that happens to be slaughtered in a kosher method.

  While Butterball does certify some of its turkeys kosher, it would make little sense for all Thanksgiving turkeys to be certified either kosher or halal, as this would drive the price up. Also, eating meat that happens to be halal doesn’t make one Muslim, anymore than eating meat that happens to be kosher makes one Jewish.
  
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  (#1) Thanksgiving Has Been Celebrated Every Year Since 1621

  THE MYTH: Thanksgiving has been celebrated every year since its first occurrence as a joint feast between Pilgrims and Indians.

  THE REALITY: Up until the 1940’s, Thanksgiving had a spotty history of being celebrated. After the first Thanksgiving, commonly thought to take place in late September or early October, there were periodic celebrations of thanksgiving for good harvests among the 13 Colonies, and the First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given in 1777.

  Up until the outbreak of the Civil War, there were a random assortment of "national days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving.” Some presidents issued them every year, some never did.
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  (#10) Obama's Pardoned Turkey was Killed Anyway

  THE MYTH: A turkey that had been pardoned by President Obama was put down anyway.

  THE REALITY: In a sense, all pardoned turkeys eventually die. But it is true that the turkey pardoned in 2012 by President Obama, named Cobbler, was euthanized the next summer. The reason for this is simple: it was dying anyway, as the turkeys bred for consumption on Thanksgiving are meant to only live a few years. All of the pardoned turkeys die soon after their pardoning ceremony, which is strictly for show. 
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  (#9) Thanksgiving False Flag Attack

  THE MYTH: The U.S. government is planning a Thanksgiving false flag attack to advance their agenda of taking away our rights and/or starting various wars.

  THE REALITY: You can go back to 2008 to find various declarations that a massive false flag attack was going to take place on Thanksgiving of that year. The same vague conspiracy theory is rehashed every year, and is never mentioned when it doesn't happen.

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