As a way to say thanks to you, my readers, this Thanksgiving, I want to help you through the Thanksgiving holiday doldrums with a collection of stories ideas that I hope you can adopt, adapt and improve upon.
If you do one of these stories, please drop a note into the reader feedback area of this column with a link to your story so we all can see it.
Travel | Food | Social Issues
Shopping | Emergencies | Resources
This Week’s Al’s Morning Meeting Holiday Story Ideas
Thanksgiving Travel (from Al’s Morning Meeting, Nov. 24, 2003)
From the Bureau of Transportation Statistics:
The Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year’s holiday periods
are among the busiest long-distance travel periods of the year. During
the 6-day Thanksgiving travel period, the number of long-distance trips
(to and from a destination 50 miles or more away) increases by 54
percent, and during the Christmas/New Year’s Holiday period, the number
rises by 23 percent, compared to the average number for the remainder
of the year. And although heavy media attention focuses on crowded
airports and bus and train stations on the Wednesday before and Sunday
after Thanksgiving, when personal vehicle trips are added to the mix,
the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) reveals that Thanksgiving
Day is actually a heavier long-distance travel day than Wednesday.
Most long-distance holiday travel, about 91 percent, is by personal
vehicle, such as by car. The percentage of long-distance travelers who
travel by personal vehicle during the holidays is not statistically
different from the 89 percent who make long-distance trips by personal
vehicle during the rest of the year. Only 5 to 6 percent of holiday trips are by air, while 2 to 3 percent are by bus, train, ship, or other mode.
Some Untruths About Thanksgiving Travel (from Nov. 24, 2003)
I often hear that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year. Not true.
It is true
that more people fly on Wednesday, but remember that is only a tiny
portion of all travelers.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics says:
Thanksgiving Day is a more heavily-traveled day than (the Wednesday
before). Among those traveling more than 100 miles, travel is evenly
spread throughout the Wednesday-Sunday period, with no statistically
significant difference among the traffic flows during those five days.For those traveling by air, bus, rail, or other commercial mode,
Thanksgiving travel patterns follow a traditional pattern where Wednesday’s volumes are higher than Thursday’s.
While crowded airports and bus and train stations receive heavy media
attention on Wednesday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, 9 out of 10
travelers use personal vehicles. And, depending on the distance
traveled, these travelers have two very distinct travel patterns:
- For those traveling between 50 and 99 miles (44 percent of personal vehicle trips), more travel on Thursday than Wednesday, and more return on Saturday than Sunday.
- For those traveling at least 100 miles away (56 percent of personal
vehicle trips), trips are spread almost equally throughout the
Wednesday through Sunday travel period.
Real-Time Flight Delays (from Dec. 2, 2004)
The FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center
is pretty awesome. I was sitting on a grounded plane logged in to this
site on the day before Thanksgiving and knew more than the flight
attendants did about when we were getting out of Tampa. My wife
pretended to be impressed.
Holiday Travel (adapted from Nov. 22, 2004)
Come on. Don’t do the lame “get to the airport two or three hours
early” holiday travel stories this year. Last year, I heard all of
those gloom-and-doom stories — and my Thanksgiving travel went like
clockwork.
One reason I no longer believe those conventional-wisdom stories is
that fewer people can go through security checkpoints in these
“post-Sept. 11” days. Unless you are a ticketed traveler, you have
to stay in the terminal, which means the concourses are really less
congested now than they once were at holiday time.
This year, the security screening may be a LOT more physical than before.
The Dallas Morning News ran some tips two years ago that I supplemented here:
- Speed the process. Print your boarding pass at home. You can also
use a kiosk or skycap to skip the check-in lines and go directly to
security.- Be ready for security. The Transportation Security Administration
suggests you empty your pockets (bring a plastic bag or some other
lightweight bag with a zipper for jewelry and cell phones) and take off
your shoes (slip-ons with socks are best) while in line. Take off all
shoes, even tennis shoes. Remove outerwear, like coats. Juggling food
is difficult at the checkpoint, so skip the coffee and snacks until
after you pass through security. Hang up the cell phone while passing
through security.- Bring snacks or eat at the airport. Most airlines do not serve
meals in coach class on shorter U.S. flights — and even on some long
ones. American Airlines is eliminating pillows on shorter flights. (See previous Al’s Morning Meeting.)- If you take medication, keep extra doses with you. If your flight
is delayed or your bag is lost, you don’t want to be caught without it.
If you are traveling with small children, bring fun toys and books.
Holidays Could Be High Season for Lost Bags (from Nov. 14, 2006)
Ever since the Department of Homeland
Security disallowed travelers to carry bottles of liquids or gels (above 3
ounces) onto planes, people have checked more luggage. As a result, more
luggage is being lost these days, and Thanksgiving travel could be a real treat
for those of us who will be flying. The U.S. Department of
Transportation reports:
The U.S.
carriers reporting flight delay and mishandled baggage data posted a mishandled
baggage rate of 8.25 reports per 1,000 passengers in September, up from both
September 2005’s 4.56 rate and August 2006’s 8.08 mark. For the first nine
months of the year, the carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 6.44 per
1,000 passengers, up from the 6.19 mark recorded during January to September
2005.
The
New York Times says:
The Transportation Department reported that 107,731 more fliers had their
bags go missing in August than they did a year earlier, a 33 percent increase.
It got worse in September, with 183,234 more passengers suffering mishandled
bags than a year earlier, up 92 percent.
Globally, about 30 million bags are mishandled each year, according to SITA, a company that sells software
to airlines and airports for baggage and other systems. Airlines spend about
$2.5 billion to find those bags and deliver them to waiting, often angry,
passengers.
All but about 200,000 bags are eventually reunited with their owners each
year — a number that sounds pretty high on its own, but that represents less
than 1 percent of the billions of bags that are checked annually.
Efforts are under way to fix two of the worst baggage operations in the United
States — at US
Airways in Philadelphia and at Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which operates
as Delta Connection here. Both airlines had scrimped on workers and equipment
at these airports. But it is far from certain whether these hubs will be
running smoothly by Thanksgiving.
Because of the relatively primitive technology used by airlines to track
baggage, passengers typically only learn that their luggage missed their flight
after a futile wait at the carousel. Then, travelers must hunt down baggage
agents, fill out forms, and wait for hours or even days for someone, often
unannounced, to deliver their bags.
What should you do if the airline loses your bags? MarketWatch
has a few suggestions.
See
this report from the DOT [PDF] on mishandled baggage. Check out page 30 for
recent reports filed by passengers.
Holiday Cooking Grease Stopping Sewer Lines (from Nov. 24, 2003)
Remember when I
told you about a city that calculated they spent hundreds of thousands
of dollars cleaning the cooking grease out of sewer lines every year?
The city also said they had a LOT more problems around the holidays
because that is when people cook and dump grease down the drain.
Al’s Morning Meeting reader Darrell Rebouche, the Managing Editor
of KTAL NewsChannel 6 in Shreveport, La., took me up on the tip and his station did a story on the problem of trapped grease.
Leftover How-to’s (from Nov. 22, 2001)
When it comes to deeply-ingrained
cultural traditions, Thanksgiving dinner leftovers are as much an
institution as the Thanksgiving dinner itself. Some people dread having
to think of a way to use up the leftovers from their abundant
celebration feast, but most people will secretly admit to looking
forward to the leftovers even more than to Thanksgiving dinner itself!
Here are some recipes dedicated to Thanksgiving leftovers.
Overeaters and Thanksgiving (adapted from Nov. 24, 2004)
For those of you working on day-after-Thanksgiving shopping stories, make sure you check out an earlier Al’s Morning Meeting for story ideas.
I
have never seen this story covered. How difficult it must be for people
who are addicted to overeating to survive Thanksgiving without giving
in to the addiction.
As I look around the Web, I see “Overeaters Anonymous” meetings in many cities on Thanksgiving mornings. (Find a meeting)
- Here is a meeting in Madison, Wis.
- Here is another in the Chicago area.
In Santa Cruz, Calif., there was a special yoga class in 2004 for Thanksgiving overeaters.
A 2004 story in The New York Times regional newspapers carried a story from The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun which said that binge eating is especially difficult during the holidays:
The temptation to overeat will strike most of us during the holiday
season, but for those who suffer from a binge-eating disorder, holiday
feasting can be self-inflicted hell.Binge eating disorder is
a newly recognized condition that probably affects millions of
Americans. Those with the disorder frequently eat large amounts of food
while feeling at a loss to control their eating.
Experts make these suggestions:
- Eat normally before the “big meal.” If you starve all day
in an attempt to save up all the calories for the one meal, you will
most likely be so hungry by the time you sit down that you will
overeat. - Make sure you stock up on the healthier choices that are
available. You can never go wrong with vegetable sticks, fruit, and
baked chicken or turkey. Be sure to drink plenty of water. Avoid
drinking too much alcohol, which will not only add unnecessary calories
to your meal, but also will reduce your inhibitions and make you eat
more than you planned. - Develop a new habit of leaving at least one bite of each
item on your plate. If you can master this, it becomes easier to stop
eating when you feel full. You will be used to leaving food on your
plate. - Eat slowly. It takes your brain 20 minutes to realize you
are full. This is why we sometimes feel like we are going to explode
about a half hour after we leave the table, but felt perfectly fine
when we walked away. By this time, it’s too late — we’ve already
consumed the calories.
Average Thanksgiving Meal= 3,000 Calories (from Nov. 24, 2004)
The American Council on Exercise (ACE) says:
“A 160 lb. person would have to run at a moderate pace for four
hours, swim for five hours or walk 30 miles to burn off a 3,000-calorie
Thanksgiving Day meal,” said Dr. Cedric Bryant, ACE chief exercise physiologist.
“Many people start by snacking throughout the day and that combined
with the meal can lead to a total caloric intake of 4,500,” said Dr. Cedric Bryant, ACE chief exercise physiologist.
How Far Must You Walk to Work Off Thanksgiving Calories? (from Nov. 24, 2005)
Here is a Web site that allows you to use the Thanksgiving calorie calculator to total your Thanksgiving-feast calories and see how far you must walk in steps or miles to walk it off. Check as many Thanksgiving dinner menu items as you wish.
I did the calculation for what I think I would eat, and it said it would have to walk 28 MILES. I am rethinking my strategy.
I’ll bet gyms and health clubs will be busy this afternoon.
Remember: 185 Degrees (from Nov. 26, 2002)
Getting family together for a
Thanksgiving feast can be stressful enough without worrying about
whether the meal will make anyone sick. That’s why the government and
consumer groups are talking turkey about how cooks can serve a safe
meal.
Turkey should be cooked to 185 degrees. Use a thermometer, or at least use one of the turkeys with the pop-up thermometers in them.
Thorough cooking destroys salmonella bacteria and other food-borne illnesses.
Online Thanksgiving Chefs (from Nov. 26, 2002)
The National Turkey Federation has a cool addition to its Web site: two dozen chefs who have produced online recipes, including audio, video and step-by-step directions. The audio is not great on some of them, but it is a cool idea.
The “Freshman 15” (from Oct. 24, 2006)
It is not a myth that college freshmen often put on weight. The old rule of
thumb was that a freshman added 15 pounds in his or her first year away from
home. New studies show that it might not be 15 pounds, but
it easily could be 5 to 7 pounds, followed by another two or three
in the sophomore year.
The
Associated Press reported:
Previous studies were small, looked at weight gain only in the first
semester, and involved hardly any male students. … [T]wo new studies fill
those gaps.
The first, funded by the federal government, involved 382 students — 40
percent of them male — at an unidentified private school in the Northeast.
Weight was measured four times — at the beginning of the school year in
September, at the end of the first semester in December, after the holiday
break in January, and at the end of the freshman year in May.
“Over the year, we found that males gained 5.6 pounds and females
gained 3.6 pounds, with the large majority of that weight gained in the first
semester,” said Elizabeth
Lloyd-Richardson, the Brown researcher who led both studies.
One out of six gained 10 or more pounds during freshman year, and 6 percent
gained the “Freshman 15” or more.
Men tended to gain weight sharply in the first semester and then more
gradually after that, while women gained a lot at first and then tended to
plateau, she said.
At the end of the freshman year, more than 17 percent were overweight or
obese, compared to only 14 percent at the start.
The second study involved 907 students, 55 percent of them male, at an
unidentified public university in the Midwest and was
funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Students were weighed four times[,] as in the previous study, but also at the
end of their sophomore year.
Similar to the first study, students gained an average of 7.8 pounds during
the freshman year. More than one-third gained 10 pounds or more, and one-fifth
piled on 15 or more.
Things got worse the next year. Males were on average 9.5 pounds heavier,
and females, 9.2 pounds heavier, than when they started college.
How did the “Freshman 15” come to be such a widely feared
phenomenon? See
this story that The
New York Times ran in August for some context.
Experts say there are several reasons college freshmen eat so much. They
might be so busy with studies and new lifestyle changes that they ditch old
exercise routines. Sad and lonesome freshmen might find comfort in food. And
hectic schedules lead to eating on the run and late night snacking, not to
mention beer drinking.
When I moved away to college, I went from eating, say, an Instant Breakfast
drink every morning, to eating all the eggs, bacon and pancakes the school
cafeteria would serve me. School nutritionists say now is the time of year they
start hearing from students who have begun to pack on the pounds. The students
are coming to them for help.
And just as complaints swell, the most unapologetically food-focused of all
American holidays pops up. When it comes to eating, lounging around and gaining
weight, every weekend of a college freshman’s year is not created equal. Watch
for students to fatten up over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Students aren’t only packing on pounds at college, they’re plumping up when
they go home for Thanksgiving, according to a new study presented Sunday at the
annual meeting of The Obesity Society.
Researchers at the University of Oklahoma in
Norman weighed 94 college students — freshmen through graduate students —
before Thanksgiving break, within a week after they came back and again in
mid-January.
Findings: Overweight college students gained slightly more than 2 pounds
during Thanksgiving break, while normal-weight kids gained a little less than
half a pound.
By mid-January, heavy students hadn’t lost those extra 2 pounds, but the
normal-weight students were back to their original weight.
When people are offered a lot of food choices over the holidays, they tend
to eat a lot more, says David Fields, an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in
Oklahoma City.
Plus, “many students just want to
relax and recharge over the holiday, so they spend a lot of time sitting
around,” says Holly Hull, the nutrition researcher who conducted the
study.
Schools Run Short of Turkey
Today (from Nov. 16, 2006)
Schools that get turkey from the Agriculture Department are having to turn
elsewhere this year for Thanksgiving lunches for students. There’s not enough
for the lunch program that feeds 29 million kids.
The problem is not a shortage of birds. They’re just too skinny. An
unusually hot summer resulted in smaller turkeys. That means supplies are
tight, which means prices are a bit higher.
“Even though we’ve put out word we want to buy turkey, they’re not
selling it to USDA,” said Billy Cox, spokesman for the Agricultural
Marketing Service.
Supermarkets generally get first dibs on turkey and other commodities. When
there is a surplus or prices are low enough, the Agriculture Department buys
some and passes it along to government-subsidized food programs, like school
lunches.
While the department is not providing turkey, schools aren’t necessarily
going without.
“We didn’t change the menu,” said Shirley Cox, food and nutrition
director for Texarkana, Ark.,
public schools. “We just went ahead and bought turkey for 3,500 to 4,000
meals.”
When Texarkana
schools serve the Thanksgiving meal today, lunch trays will have turkey,
Southern-style cornmeal dressing with giblet gravy, green peas, candied sweet
potatoes and cranberry sauce — and small cups of holiday ice cream.
Plumbers Hard to Find on Thanksgiving (from Nov. 24, 2003)
While I am at it, I will remind you about one of my favorite
Thanksgiving stories, the on-call plumbers. Plumbers have told me, and
a few of you found it to be true last year, that Thanksgiving is one of
the busiest days of the year for plumbers, if not the busiest
day. The reason, of course, is that people stop up their drains and
bathrooms with all of the company and cooking and such.
It would also be a fun “what to do if you get your sink stuck”
story. I actually fixed my garbage disposal a few years ago by going to
an online home repair site and following the instructions.
ER Thanksgiving Photo Essay (from Nov. 22, 2001)
Thanksgiving can be a very
busy time for emergency rooms. The stress of families, overeating and
touch football all take their toll. One year I saw a wonderful photo
essay which included several people who had fallen off ladders and
roofs installing Christmas lights. It is a gamble, but could be
interesting.
Christmas-Light Injuries (from Nov. 26, 2003)
Around my house, the weekend after Thanksgiving is the day when I
make my annual climb up our big oak tree to hang Christmas decorations
outside. With each year that goes by, it seems like an increasingly bad
idea, but tradition calls.
I suspect you will see some increase in ER visits from idiots like me who fall from housetops and trees.
Cooking: No. 1 Cause of House Fires (from Nov. 26, 2003)
While we are at it, let’s spend a moment looking at the No. 1
cause of house fires — cooking. And, this time of year, especially
today, is all about cooking.
There is no doubt that sometime today, your local fire department will respond to many calls of cooking fires.
National Fire Protection Association says:
In 1999, the latest year for which statistics are available, there
were 96,200 home structure fires attributed to cooking equipment,
including 1,800 fires confined to a cooking vessel. These fires
resulted in 331 civilian deaths, 4,183 civilian injuries, and $511.3
million in direct property damage. Three out of four home cooking fires
involve the range. And two-thirds of the time, according to one study,
the fires start within the first 15 minutes of cooking.“Cooking fires remain one of the toughest problems we face,” said
John R. Hall Jr., Ph.D., of NFPA’s Fire Analysis and Research Division.
“We have made less headway in preventing cooking fires than in
preventing other kinds of home fires.”
Last Thanksgiving morning, I had the distinction of having tried to
bake some cinnamon rolls for the family. Some gooey stuff spilled to
the burner and it smoked like a fireplace. We have smoke alarms
directly linked to a security company and once you sound the alarm,
they can’t stop them. I did have the decency to offer the fire and
rescue guys some nice warm rolls when they arrived.
The Holidays and Homelessness (adapted from Al’s Morning Meeting, Nov. 24, 2005)
ReligionLink, a Web site from the Religion Newswriters Association,
has an interesting take on homelessness and the holiday season. It may
be a hook that can take the place of the tired “feeding the homeless
for Thanksgiving” story that too many newsrooms turn to. It may be that
your homeless population has grown, thanks to Hurricane Katrina.
ReligionLink said:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency
recently announced that 150,000 people left homeless by Hurricane
Katrina have until Dec. 1, [a deadline that has, since the publication
of this article, been extended to Dec. 15,] to find housing other than
government-subsidized apartments. Some will find other housing, but
many may become homeless.They join the estimated 800,000 Americans who are homeless on any
given day. As many as 3.5 million people may be homeless at some point
in a given year. The plight of Katrina’s victims can help illuminate
the plight of the increasing number of homeless people in America
and myths about them. Many families are homeless for only a short time
because of job loss or other circumstances, but studies show one
episode of homelessness can have long-term negative consequences.Consider profiling a family left homeless by Katrina, a family
experiencing what will likely be short-term homelessness and another
family experiencing long-term homelessness. Explore the reasons for
their homelessness with the backdrop of being “home” for the holidays.
Religious organizations are prime providers of food and shelter for the
homeless; how are they responding to hurricane victims as well as other
homeless?
- Homelessness and poverty are increasing in the United States,
and most state budgets have experienced deep cuts in social services.
Will this new homeless population stretch scarce resources even further? […]- Read a transcript of the Urban Institute’s Oct. 4, 2005, panel on homelessness after Hurricane Katrina.
- Read “What will it take to end homelessness?” an Oct. 1, 2001, report from the Urban Institute that includes facts and causes of homelessness.
- More cities and states are enacting laws that target homeless people. Read “Illegal to be Homeless: The Criminalization of Homelessness in the United States,” a November 2004 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless.
- Religious organizations are critical in providing shelter and food
for the homeless in most cities. How are they responding to increased
needs?- The mission of the National Coalition for the Homeless is to end homelessness. It links to state and local organizations for the homeless.
- Read an August 2005 report from the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty,
which describes recent studies that found significant increases in
requests for shelter and food assistance in states across the country.- The U.S. Census Bureau reports that the U.S. poverty level rose to 12.7 percent in 2004 and the percentage of the U.S. population without health insurance stayed steady at 15.7 percent. Read the Aug. 30, 2005, news release.
Getting Green After Christmas (from Dec. 26, 2004)
The National Geographic Web site said:
Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s day, Americans throw away a
million extra tons [900,000 metric tons] of garbage each week,
including holiday wrapping and packaging, according to Robert
Lilienfeld. Lilienfield is co-author of the book “Use Less Stuff:
Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are.”So why not recycle holiday gift wrap? Lilienfield, who has published a newsletter
on reducing waste since 1996, notes that if every family reused just 2
feet [0.6 meter] of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles [61,000
kilometers] of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet.…The National Christmas Tree Association, an organization which
represents Christmas tree growers, has teamed up with Scottsdale,
Arizona-based conservation group Earth 911 to point consumers in the
right direction with their trees. On their Web site, you can enter your zip code to find the nearest of 3,800-plus spots nationwide that accept old trees.
Right after Christmas is the best time to buy a new artificial tree.
I bought one a few years ago right after Christmas for less than half-price.
To Aging Grandmother’s House We Go (from Nov. 26, 2002)
This week, millions of us will go home to see aging family members for
Thanksgiving. It is a time when families start to recognize that aging
members of the family might need some extra care. When my family goes
to visit our aging in-laws in rural Arkansas home each year, it is the nonstop
source of conversation: who is able to live on their own, and who needs
to sell out and “move to town.”
The Wall Street Journal Sunday has a nice piece about how
to assess whether it is time to step in and help older folks manage
their affairs. The checklist includes:
If two or more of your answers to these questions indicate that your
parents are struggling, it may be time to figure out ways to help.
1.) Has your mother or father been diagnosed with an illness that could impact daily life?
2.) Could their driving pose an above average risk for an accident, or could they get lost and panic?
3.) Are they eating balanced meals? Do they have long-expired food in the refrigerator?
4.) How do they look and smell, and are they washing the sheets and towels?
5.) Are you parents taking much longer than in the past to prepare meals or get ready to go out?
6.) Can they take their medications properly, and do they know why they’re taking them?
7.) Are they paying their bills, and do they have cash in their wallets?
8.) Is the mail stacking up, and do you see past-due or delinquency notices?
9.) Do they remember names of neighbors and places?
10.) Are they turning off appliances and keeping the doors locked?
Credit-Card Use — and Debt (from Nov. 24, 2005)
Just in time for
the holiday shopping season, here are new findings from “The Plastic
Safety Net,” a report from a survey conducted by Demos and the Center for Responsible Lending. (For information on the survey’s methodology, see Page 6 of the PDF version of the report.)
The survey consisted of 1,150 phone interviews with low-
and middle-income households whose incomes fell between 50 percent and
120 percent of local median income. In order to participate in the
survey, a household had to have credit card debt for three months or
longer at the time of the survey.
The Center for Responsible Lending pulled this data from survey results:
- $8,650 is the average credit card debt of a low- and middle-income indebted household in America.
- Fifty-nine percent of respondents were in credit debt for longer than one year.
- Seven
out of 10 low- and middle-income households reported using their credit
cards as a safety net — relying on credit to pay for basic living
expenses, medical expenses or essential repairs. - One
out of three households reported using credit cards to cover basic
living expenses on average four out of the last 12 months; households
that reported a recent job loss or unemployment, and those without
health insurance in the last three years, were almost twice as likely
to use credit cards for basic living expenses. - 20
percent of survey homeowners paid off some credit card debt with a
mortgage refinance in the last three years, reducing their home equity
$12,000 on average. Further, these households still had average credit
card debt over $14,000. As a result, they were carrying 18 percent more
debt than homeowners who had refinanced a mortgage but not paid down
credit card debt — even though their incomes were almost identical. In
other words, they were trading unsecured credit card debt for higher
mortgage debt secured by their home.
The Biggest Shopping Day of the Year — NOT (from Nov. 26, 2002)
The day after Thanksgiving is an important day for retailers, but it is not the biggest shopping day of the year. The National Retail Federation says the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest day of consumer traffic, but not the biggest sales day.
Holiday Shopping Tips (from Nov. 26, 2002)
The Federal Trade Commission is out with its consumer shopping tips. The FTC includes some thoughts on online shopping and return policies.
Thanksgiving Resources (adapted from Nov. 20, 2005)
The Census Bureau has more than you will need.
Leftovers
Here are a couple of sites dedicated to the fine art of figuring out what to do with Thanksgiving leftovers:
The History of Stuffing Ourselves
I got this from Al’s Morning Meeting reader Ron Wolf at Ascribe, a news release service for universities and non-profits:
Although Thanksgiving celebrations have changed through time, “the
act of stuffing ourselves has a longstanding tradition,” according to
Colgate University’s Anthony Aveni, an archaeoastronomist who
specializes in the study of ancient rites and customs. Author of “The
Book of the Year-A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays,” Aveni
traces modern day Thanksgiving to feasts thousands of years ago.“Every agrarian culture has had a time dedicated to giving thanks, a
celebration that fell near the harvest’s conclusion,” explains Aveni.
- The Jews began celebrating the eight-day-long Sukkoth centuries ago.
- The ancient Maya of Yucatan feasted on turkey three thousand years ago.
- Ancient Greeks held a nine-day festival honoring Demeter, the fertility goddess.
- In early Europe, during “Lammas” (loaf mass in old English), fresh
breads from harvested grains were “blessed, broken, and ritually
offered to the corners of the domicile for protection.”- In 1621,
the Pilgrims and Indians celebrated the first Thanksgiving holiday. Two
years later, a late rain saved the Pilgrims from possible starvation.
Held on Nov. 29, that feast had religious as well as social overtones.Several U.S. presidents played a role in Thanksgiving’s evolution:
- George Washington declared Thursday, November 16, 1789, a
“nationwide holiday of Thanksgiving to commemorate the Pilgrims as well
as to thank God for victory in the American Revolution.”- Thomas
Jefferson didn’t think the “suffering of northern puritans was worthy
of official recognition by the entire nation,” so it wasn’t until well
into the 19th century that feasting was strongly associated with
Thanksgiving.- Lincoln advanced the holiday as a way of promoting unity in the midst of Civil War strife.
- The final scheduling adjustment to Thanksgiving was made in response to
the business world, a fine tuning from the last to the fourth Thursday
in November proclaimed by President FDR. “The change came in response
to complaints that late last Thursdays (like the 29th or 30th)
encroached on Christmas, which could in some circumstances loom a mere
three weekends ahead,” Aveni recounted.“We may have replaced the traditional morning church service with
football…but we still dutifully (and usually punishingly) stuff
ourselves,” Aveni concludes.For additional information on these spring holidays or any other holiday, contact Anthony Aveni.
THIS WEEK’S AL’S MORNING MEETING HOLIDAY STORY IDEAS
Monday Edition (Nov. 20, 2006):
Tuesday Edition (Nov. 21, 2006):
Wednesday Edition (Nov. 22, 2006):
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor’s Note: Al’s Morning Meeting
is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials
from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis.
When the information comes directly from another source, it will be
attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is
fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the
original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
