Most of us learned to identify turkeys in elementary school, by tracing outlines of our hands to make Thanksgiving cards. Wild turkeys inhabit mature forests, edged by fields. After being hunted out of large parts of their range, turkeys were reintroduced and are numerous once again. ©Bob Leggett
It’s Thanksgiving morning 2016, and many of you are probably looking forward to enjoying a rather bountiful lunch or dinner later today. For a lot of you, the starring item on the menu will be a big turkey.
According to the National Turkey Federation, 88 percent of all Americans will have turkey on their tables today. Eating this true, American bird on this quintessential American holiday has a long history. In fact, Alexander Hamilton once proclaimed “no citizen of the United States should refrain from turkey on Thanksgiving Day.” It seems we’ve taken that notion to heart: 46 million turkeys were eaten at Thanksgiving in the United States in 2015.
I know you’ve got a lot of dishes yet to make and things you need to accomplish. So, I’ll keep this short and simple. Let the soothing, three-minute video below, produced in 2015 for CBS Sunday Morning, play as you bake pumpkin pies, peel potatoes and stuff that bird. While you go about your business on this day of gratitude, watch as the birds that so many of us gratefully eat on this annual holiday go about theirs. And, when it comes time to go around the table and give thanks, remember the turkey that provides us with so much every year.
Make this Thanksgiving a good one,
Candy
