The season of Thanksgiving is a tiny blip of time between Halloween and Christmas. As early as mid-October, stores pull out their Christmas displays alongside their Halloween decorations, ads for Christmas music start playing on Spotify and we are reminded by advertisers to begin our Christmas shopping. Personally, I waited for Nov. 1 to begin listening to my Christmas playlists.
For many college students, Thanksgiving is just a nice breather before finals week. It's a time to visit family, eat good food, rest from classes, watch football and shop online. (Black Friday deals, anyone?) However, Thanksgiving is a holiday in its own right with its own traditions. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, pardoning the turkey and the turkey trot are just some of the traditions Thanksgiving is known for. How did these traditions originate, though?
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
The first began as an advertisement for the Christmas sale at Macy’s. The first parade was held on Nov. 27, 1924 by Macy’s employees to promote both the Christmas sales and Macy’s new location in the Herald Square store, which was the largest in the world at the time. The parade was such a success that from then on, it was declared an annual event. It was originally called Macy’s Christmas Day Parade but was changed to Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1927. Although it began as a promotional event, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has become a small time capsule of pop culture every year, highlighting popular movies and icons by the balloons, floats and guests chosen to participate in the parade.
Turkey Pardoning
The tradition of pardoning a turkey on Thanksgiving Day and thus saving it from the dining table is said to have originated years ago. However, the established practice is fairly recent. Unlike in the movie , the pardoned turkey returns to its happy life on the farm and does not remain with the president’s family. The first president to is said to have been President Abraham Lincoln in , when his son, Tad Lincoln, asked his father to pardon a turkey named Jack.
Nothing happened in regards to turkey pardoning until the latter years of Richard Nixon's presidency, when first lady Patricia Nixon would receive the turkeys on behalf of the president and send them to a farm, pardoning them. A similar fate was granted to the 1978 turkey presented to first lady Rosalynn Carter. After 1981, the practice of pardoning a turkey became the norm during Ronald Reagan’s presidency and has remained a common practice. In a way, this symbolic gesture represents that the president’s role includes showing mercy in certain cases. Today, the chooses two turkeys to be pardoned, which are raised on a farm. They are then presented at the pardoning ceremony and returned to a farm. These turkeys come with matching names, such as Tater and Tot, pardoned in 2016, or May and Flower, pardoned in 2007. The names of the two turkeys pardoned in 老司机传媒 2023 were Liberty and Bell.
The Turkey Trot
Another lesser-known tradition is the turkey trot, a that is held on Thanksgiving Day. Lengths of races vary by location, but turkey trots (such as Niles’) generally include a 10K run, a 5K run/walk and a one-mile “fun run.”
The first turkey trot, which was eight kilometers long, was held in 1896 in Buffalo, New York, with six contestants; four finished the race. From then on, the tradition stuck, with the trot being run on Thanksgiving Day through ill weather and pandemics. Thanksgiving Day is now considered the biggest running day of the year—756,894 people signed up for a turkey trot in 2022. An interesting addition to the run was the use of costumes by the runners beginning in the 1980s, including turkey, eating utensils, hockey players and comfortable onesies. If you would like to join a turkey trot in Michigan this year, check out this for more information.
So there you have it, three Thanksgiving Day traditions to enjoy. I hope you learned something new, and who knows, maybe you will even participate in one yourself! Regardless, these traditions are all ways to celebrate the season of Thanksgiving. And if you are interested in some more traditions to enjoy, look for some in an online article like this .
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 老司机传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 老司机传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.