Thanksgiving is pretty much hours away at this point, and for the next few seconds, we want you to think about Thanksgiving traditions that you and your friends and/or family have. Our Thanksgiving traditions include a whole lot of unbuttoning our pants a few minutes into the meal, getting asked super personal questions regarding our careers and/or love life, and falling asleep as soon as our last bite of pumpkin pie has fallen right down the hatch, now while these aren’t our most shining moments, they’re still Thanksgiving traditions to us. Luckily since the internet exists, we were able to research and put together a little list of a few pretty strange Thanksgiving traditions; ones that will make your family look normal. Let’s get started!
Pardoning a Turkey
In the late 1940s, the Truman Administration decided it would be super fun (or something?) to bring a turkey to a public space a declare before the turkey and event attendees that this turkey would not be eaten for Thanksgiving. President H.W. Bush, in the late 1980s, thought this was so great that it should become a national tradition. So, yes, you’re reading this correctly, it is now a national tradition for the president to give some random turkey a presidential pardon on live television. If you’re wondering what happens to the turkey after it’s pardoned, it goes to Mount Vernon, the former estate of President George Washington, to live out a few fun-filled days doing whatever a turkey does.
(image via: the boston globe)
Turkey Trots
Okay, we get it, you’re a 5k family, so go sign up for the Turkey Trot then. The Turkey Trot is an event held all over the United States and it involves dressing up like a turkey and running 3 – 5 miles. Now, this event doubles as a charity fundraiser, so we’ll let it slide. But just so we’re clear, the only running we’ll be doing on Thanksgiving is to the kitchen for pumpkin pie.
Pie Eating Contests
Okay, if we’re being honest, we understand how this would be viewed as “festive”. But we’ll never understand shoving massive amounts of food down your throat, and for what? We can’t make heads or tails of it, but we do love pie; we’ll just stick to our traditional single slice. Or two if we’re feeling crazy.
Black Friday
A lot of us probably recall seeing news footage of malls and people being actually trampled, all over.. A Furby? We’re starting to see Black Friday phase-out, but at its height, it was a pretty wild phenomenon that certainly left us scratching our heads because not only did Black Friday sales start happening on Thursday, but didn’t we just devote an entire day and meal to being thankful?
(image via: tell tale tv)