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By Craig Andresen – Right Side Patriots on American Political Radio

Oh boy…Thanksgiving…according to most liberals, the most politically incorrect holiday between Columbus Day and Christmas.

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621 at Plymouth Colony by the Pilgrims…that much pretty much everybody knows, but there’s a lot about that first celebration that nobody knows because only two accounts of it were ever written down.

Therefore, it falls to me to provide a bit of a history lesson which I am more than happy to undertake, so let’s get started with what little we actually know about that very first Thanksgiving…

To begin with…

Do you know how many people were at that first Thanksgiving? It may surprise some to know that in 1621, there were only 53 Pilgrims left alive of the original 102 that moved to America using Mayflower moving services.

Just 53…and of that 53, it may well surprise even more folks to know that there were only 4 women…Eleanor Billington, Mary Brewster, Elizabeth Hopkins and Susanna White Winslow. Also of the 53, there were 22 men, and 27 children but that, of course, did not comprise the sum total of the first Thanksgiving feasters.

There were 91 Indians that also attended…meaning that the Indians outnumbered the Pilgrims by nearly two to one but there seems to be more to that number than initially meets the eye.

One of the two written records of that very first Thanksgiving came from Edward Winslow who wrote of it: “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our Governor, and upon the Captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

So…from that written account, we learn a few more things…

The first Thanksgiving lasted three days…and the Indians didn’t bring with them any women…just their Chief, Massasoit, and 90 men…meaning the women were then outnumbered 112 to 4.

Can you even imagine eating a full Thanksgiving feast for 3 full days? I’m telling you right now, those Pilgrims were loosening the buckles on their pants, their shoes AND their hats.

Between the writings of Winslow and William Bradford, we have a pretty good idea of what was on the menu that day…water fowl…fish…corn, deer, and according to Bradford…wild turkeys but here’s a little thing not many people know…in 1621, after a year of living in America, and despite there still being 22 men…nobody had gotten around to building a stove.

All the food had to be cooked over open fires.

NOT on the menu were things that have become traditional Thanksgiving fare…cranberries that come out of the can with a sloppy farting sound and retain the shape of the can. This isn’t to say that the Pilgrims didn’t have cranberries…they might have…but they weren’t the rather sweet, gelatinous sort we have today. There were no potatoes…mashed or sweet as taters hadn’t made it to America by the time of that first Thanksgiving.

There was no green bean casserole with the fried onions on top either…most likely because cream of mushroom soup hadn’t been invented yet.

Dinner rolls? Nope…the Pilgrims didn’t have any flour which also means there was no pie for dessert. No flour…no oven…no pie crusts, no stuffing and no dinner rolls. Of course, not having dinner rolls meant there was no need for butter and that’s okay because the Pilgrims didn’t have any butter anyway which is because they couldn’t find any animals that would stand still long enough to be milked…and the 4 women weren’t having any part of it.

Needless to say, our traditional Thanksgiving meals bare little resemblance to the historical fare.

There’s something else that the Pilgrims didn’t have, and history never mentions so it’s a good thing I’m here to fill in the blanks. The Pilgrims had no toilet paper. Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but after a big meal…at some point…I need toilet paper.

The Pilgrims had…leaves…and I’m willing to bet that they only made the poison oak mistake…once.

Okay, given all of that…when exactly was the first Thanksgiving?

Well…first of all…the Pilgrims didn’t call it Thanksgiving…to them, it was a harvest festival…the continuation of an English tradition…and second of all…we don’t really know when it was because neither Bradford nor Winslow bothered to jot that bit of information down. Most likely, it was somewhere between early September and the middle of November…but to be perfectly honest…nobody knows for sure.

Thanksgiving didn’t become Thanksgiving until 1840 when Sarah Josepha Hale…the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book stumbled upon Edward Winslow’s writings and decided to revive the celebration…but that was well after George Washington issued via the Continental Congress, a declaration that the first national Thanksgiving be on December 18, 1777, and yet another declaration in 1789 that the last Thursday in November be a national day of giving thanks.

Now to be clear…those were presidential declarations…not national holidays and for that…we have to look at a different element of history….and again to Sarah Josepha Hale who, beginning in 1846 wrote to Presidents Taylor, then Filmore, then Pierce and Buchanan to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, and none of them did a darn thing about it…but when Hale penned a note to President Lincoln…things changed.

In the midst of the Civil War, Lincoln saw a new national Holiday as something that might serve as a uniter between a war-torn America and deemed that Thanksgiving become a national holiday on the 3^rd Thursday of November beginning in 1863.

By the way…pro football’s Thanksgiving Day game tradition started with a match-up between Detroit and Chicago in 1934. Detroit lost…19-16….and that green bean casserole tradition? That started in 1955 when Dorcas Reilly, who worked in the Campbell’s Soup Home Economics department tossed the two main ingredients together and called it… “Green Bean Bake.”

Sadly, Dorcas Reilly died in September of this year at the age of 92 so, this Thanksgiving, before you dig into the green bean casserole…give a special nod of thanks to Dorcus…and a round of applause for the 4 original Pilgrim women who had to clean up the mess after 149 men and kids spent 3 days eating, scratching, belching and farting…in 1621.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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© Craig Andresen/thenationalpatriot.com 2018

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For more political commentary please visit my RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS partner Diane Sori’s blog The Patriot Factor to read her latest article Israel in the Crosshairs…Again
************************************************************************************************  RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS…LIVE!

Today, Tuesday, November 20th from 7 to 9pm EST on American Political Radio, RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS Craig Andresen and Diane Sori discuss ‘Israel in the Crosshairs…Again’; ‘Thanksgiving…Without the Gravy’; and important news of the day.

Hope you can tune in at: http://listen.samcloud.com/w/73891/American-Political-Radio#history…or on Tune-In at: https://tunein.com/radio/American-Political-Radio-s273246/