THANKSGIVING IS . . . .

Thanksgiving is
a time of changing seasons, when leaves turn golden
in Autumn’s wake and apples are crisp
in the first chill breezes of fall.

Thanksgiving is
a time to reflect on the changes,
and to remember that we, too, grow and change
from one season of life to another.

Thanksgiving is
a time of gratitude to God,
whose guidance and care go before us . . .
and whose love is with us forever.

Let us remember the true meaning of Thanksgiving.
As we see the beauty of Autumn,
let us acknowledge the many blessings which are ours . . .
let us think of our families and friends . . .
and let us give thanks in our hearts.

~~Author Unknown.~~

All of us at Storybook Quilts wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

So, I wondered, why is the day after Thanksgiving, when shoppers nationwide hit the stores, called “Black Friday”? Well, it depends on whom you ask.

In an earlier post, we noted that Thanksgiving football actually started in Philadelphia, basically our backyard. It seems that the term “Black Friday” did, too, in the mid-1960s. Philadelphia policemen dreaded this day, when downtown would be crammed with traffic and shoppers, and coined the term. It did not have a positive connotation, as you can tell!

Around about 1980 or so, merchants decided to try to put a positive twist on the “black” half of the term. “Black Friday,” they claimed, was a happy day when the holiday shopping season would start to pull their balance sheets into the black (and out of the red). This seems a wee bit farfetched — any merchant who operates in the red 11 months out of the year isn’t likely to be very profitable, but the myth has stuck.

Perhaps we can re-interpret this one more time. How about “black” because it’s dark when shoppers spring out of bed to rush to the sales? Or “black” because millions of computer screens remain turned off long after their normal wake-up times? Or “black” because millions of fathers, sons and daughters make their own breakfasts, while mom shops, and end up burning the toast? OK, that one was weak. So — your suggestions?

If you’re one of the early risers, I wish you a successful foray and a safe return home to a nice, long nap.

(No, sorry, Storybook Quilts isn’t having a sale on Black Friday. But on Cyber Monday (11/30), we are offering two specials through our Artfire Kiosk on our our Facebook Fan Page): a 20% discount on the first two Dapper Dan the Snowman Storybook quilts orderd and a free year-occasion square on the first two SQ packages ordered.

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

Over the river and through the wood,
To grandfather’s house we go:
The horse knows the way,
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow.

Somehow, this sounds like a lot more fun than a crowded airport and delayed flights!

Did Thanksgiving really start with the Pilgrims and Indians in what’s now Massachusetts?

Yes and no. The first harvest festival in the New World may have been held in the Plymouth colony. The Indians were indispensable to the survival of the Pilgrims the first few years in the New World. A three-day feast was held beginning December 13, 1621, to thank God; ninety of the Indians attended, including their leader.

Thanksgivings –- days of giving thanks to God and, often, fasting (not feasting) — were recorded as early as the 16th century by Spaniards in the Florida colony and again in 1607 in the Virginia colony.

Would turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, corn and stuffing have been on the menu in 1621?

Turkey probably was. One Pilgrim wrote that “birds” were hunted for the event and wild turkeys were native to the area. Pumpkin or some sort of squash may well have been on the menu, although pumpkin pie probably was not – flour, if it had survived the voyage across the Atlantic at all, likely would have been used up or kept for bread – so, no crust, no pie. Sweet potatoes weren’t known in that part of the world at the time. Stuffing probably was not on the menu, at least not one made with bread. Corn almost certainly would have been part of the meal, perhaps ground and made into bread or pudding. Seafood of various types would have been included.

When did Thanksgiving become an official holiday in the US?

George Washington proclaimed a day of thanks to God in 1789, the year that the new Constitution was adopted. That year, a leading protestant church declared that the first Thursday in November would be its day of thanks.

It wasn’t until 1863, however, that a specific day was named as a national Day of Thanksgiving, the last Thursday of November. Lincoln’s Proclamation of the day, in the midst of the Civil War, is very powerful. It was written shortly after he toured the battlefield in Gettysburg, which saw the largest number of casualties in the war.

Even then, the proclamation might not have been issued had it not been for Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, who had pestered Presidents for years to proclaim an official holiday. (Sarah Hale was a very inspiring woman in many ways.)

Subsequent Presidents followed Lincoln’s lead in proclaiming a national day. In 1941, Congress designated the last Thursday in November as the official national holiday. Today, it’s celebrated by Americans of all beliefs and backgrounds.


Has Macy’s always had a Thanksgiving Day parade?

No, but it has been an amazingly long time – since 1924, 85 years! The balloons appeared in 1927. The parade was not held in the early 1940s, when the materials for the parade, particularly those for the balloons, were needed for the war effort.

How did the Macy’s parade get started?

In the 1920s, many of the Macy’s employees were recent immigrants from Europe, where parades that involve floats and people in costume are common (think Mardi Gras). They wanted to stage a similar festival to celebrate America. Participants dressed as clowns, cowboys, knights and sheiks and walked down the street accompanied by three floats (pulled by horses), four bands and zoo animals from the Central Park Zoo — camels, donkeys, elephants and goats. Santa Claus was last in the lineup, a tradition that continues to this day. Over 250,000 people attended.

Is Macy’s the only Thanksgiving Day parade?

No. Parades take place in many other cities that day, but none as elaborate or as famous as Macy’s in New York.

And football? When did that become a Thanksgiving tradition?

Even earlier than the parade! Some place the first game in 1902, in Pennyslvania, when the National Football League (not the same as today’s NFL) played for their championship. Ohio teams held contests on that day as early as 1905-06.

According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: “When it comes to Thanksgiving Day football, NFL style, most fans first think of the Lions and the tradition that was started in 1934. It was their first year in Detroit after a local radio executive, George A. Richards, had purchased the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans and moved the team to Detroit.” The Thanksgiving Day game was intended to grab attention away from Tigers baseball, which dominated the sports news.

Who won? “The matchup between the Lions and the World Champion Chicago Bears proved to be an all-time classic. The 1934 Lions had not allowed a touchdown until their eighth game and entered the game with the Bears with a 10-1 record. But with 11 straight wins, Chicago had an even better record. Still a win would put the Lions into a first-place tie with the Bears with only a game left, a repeat clash with the Bears in Chicago, just three days later on December 2 . . . The Bears edged out the Lions 19-16 . . .”

What are your Thanksgiving traditions? We’d love to hear!

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

As mentioned in earlier posts, second grade for me included memorizing Helen Hunt Jackson’s poems for September and October. I couldn’t remember a November poem and, having looked it up, I can see why! It beautifully captures November in the North, but lacks the rhyming cadences that would make it fun to recite.

This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer’s voice come bearing summer’s gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning’s rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet’s day of pain?

Fortunately, we are distracted from the worsening weather by all November’s events, many in just the first half! For example, the first Tuesday after the first Monday are elections — which can be celebrated by winner and loser alike if only for bringing an end to the barrage of TV ads and robot phone calls.

Baseball is over, of course, and football is in full swing, from Pop Warner and Vince Lombardi to the big guys on TV. The Vroom! Vroom! Storybook Quilt is all about getting to the big game — with the star player in his hot car.

Imagine cuddling up under this quilt and reading the matching story on cold November nights!

November’s important Veteran’s Day has become even more treasured in the past few years, as more young veterans have seen actual combat. It’s a solemn occasion, usually, although we all should celebrate the bravery and willingness-to-serve of our troops, present and past.

What’s happening in your November — the first half? I’d love to hear!

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

Last week, I was in London in connection with my other business, and was delighted to have timed the visit to coincide with Indian Summer days there. Yes, the newspapers there were calling the days “Indian summer.” Of course, I couldn’t really tell from which former colony that term originated (see our earlier post). Most of Europe still calls these days “St Martin’s Summer” — for that, and other interesting observations on British weather, see this post in the Telegraph, a London newspaper.

So, what do Londoners (and tourists) DO on an Indian Summer day? Well, they hang out at Trafalgar Square. Here, the view is from the steps of the National Gallery, looking down Whitehall toward Big Ben in the background.

Or they spend time in one of London’s many gorgeous parks — Kensington Gardens, in this case, just outside the palace.

Or they take the “tube” (subway/train) to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (know to most of us as “Kew Gardens”), which celebrates 250 years this year. In addition to its beauty, Kew is renowned for its work in saving thousands of plant species.

Did we find inspiration for yet another Storybook Quilt? Well, just maybe . . .

Additional photos will be posted on Storybook Quilts’ Facebook Fan Page. Join us there!

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

Well, all three belong to the same family, “cucurbita,” which has three subgroups. But that gets confusing and it’s more fun to think about their uses than figure out their complicated families!

Pumpkins have lightly-ribbed skin, usually are oblong, and have woody stems. Mostly we think of pumpkins as orange, but they also can be white or yellow or even mottled green. Orange, squat and rounder pumpkins are used for pies; we all know the big pumpkins make great jack-o-lanterns! Most pumpkins are grown for eating or for carving, but some are just ornamental.

For a fantastic series of photos on winning pumpkin carvings, click here. Our second-place winner in the Name the Turtle Contest, Barbara Randa, carved this one.

Pumpkins were an important part of the Native American diet centuries before the Pilgrims landed. Dried strips of pumpkin also were woven into mats.

The origin of pumpkin pie is thought to have occurred when the early settlers removed the seeds of a pumpkin, filled it with milk, spices and honey, and then baked it in the hot ashes of a dying fire. (That sounds a little far-fetched to me, but it makes a nice story.)

Squash, not pumpkin, is used in most of today’s store-bought “pumpkin” pie and in canned “pumpkin.” And squash is just not the same taste. Try to find someone who still makes pies from real pumpkins — the taste is wonderful!

Squash that have fairly thick, inedible skins are winter squash, second cousins to the pumpkin. They can be many colors — orange, white, blue, yellow and green. Squash are very good to eat, especially mixed with a little maple syrup and nutmeg.

Many pumpkin-carving contests use huge squash, not true pumpkins, for carving.

Gourds are first cousins to pumpkins. They are grown not for food, but for their hard or colorful shells. One type of gourd is the source of luffa sponges, those great bathtub companions!

In our Lost in a Maze Storybook Quilt, Zach spends more time than he would like with pumpkins. In this story, Zach spends a week at his aunt’s and uncle’s dairy farm, taking his new dog, Max, with him. Max is a very active Dalmatian who gets in all kinds of trouble chasing the barn cats. Zach runs after Max, trying to stop him. They both get lost in the corn maze and spend hours waiting to be found in the center of the maze, which is filled with pumpkins.

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

These people are serious. They try all kinds of things to make their pumpkins really, really big. Some have special concoctions of fertilizer; others have special water; some position their pumpkins just so; many save and trade seeds taken from the winners or near-winners; others have secrets that they’ll just never tell. This is serious competition!

A mere 480 lb pumpkin

Growing a gigantic pumpkin and transporting it to the weigh-in is fraught with dangers. If the weather is just right, or just wrong, the pumpkin can split unexpectedly right there in the field. Split pumpkins don’t count. The pumpkin may break as it’s being moved. Broken pumpkins don’t count.

So, how big IS the biggest pumpkin? On October 3, 2009, Christy Harp set the new world record with her 1725-pound pumpkin, which was weighed at the Ohio Valley Giant Pumpkin Growers GPC weigh-off in Canfield, Ohio.

How heavy is 1,725 pounds? It’s equal to approximately:
– 100 “normal” pumpkins
– 6 football linebackers
– 2/3rds of a Honda Civic
– 25 Golden Retrievers
– 312,978 pennies
– 5,520 baseballs

A 1,725 pound pumpkin would make about 1,500 pies!

Photos of that immense vegetable are here. An article about Christy and her pumpkin based on her Today Show appearance is here. A great website for more information on growing giant pumpkins is here.

Interested in how your State measures up in the giant pumpkin world? State records are here. Now, there’s something to plan for over the winter months!

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather;

Rare days, indeed, and so more appreciated! Judging from descriptions in the rest of the poem, Ms Jackson must have been thinking of Indian Summer.

Like turtle, tortoise and terapin (see our earlier post), people seem to use the term “Indian Summer” differently. Where I grew up, in the snow country of New York State, Indian Summer was the wonderful few days of warm, sunny, hazy weather in October or November that happened unexpectedly after the first frost. It was our last chance to be outside with light jackets before Old Man Winter locked us into boots and snowsuits and mittens and hats.

So, what is the definition of Indian Summer that is generally accepted? It depends on where you live. In the Northeast US, it’s when the weather is sunny, in the high 60s or low 70s, virtually all of the leaves of the trees have turned and at least one frost has occurred. According to the US Weather Service, there may be several occurrences of Indian Summer in a fall season or none at all (horrors!). For the US Weather Service’s description of the weather variables that constitute Indian Summer, click here.

But why “Indian” Summer? What does “Indian” have to do with it? This is far less clear, although a great many have spent much time trying to pinpoint the origin of the term.

Most research seems to assume that the term originated in the Northeast US, probably during colonial times, and that it took its name from the activities of Native Americans, then known as “Indians.” (And do you know why?) This included, for example, a time of late harvest or hunting in preparation for winter or, less positively, the time of the last raids on colonial settlements before winter set in.

Other research contends that the term “Indian Summer” was a term adopted in the New World from British naval usage. India was a British colony at the time and a major destination for British traders. In the seas around India, the good sailing/shipping times were when cyclones (hurricanes) were least likely. This fair-weather time, from November to March, was nicknamed “summer” by British sailors because it was a favorable time. (We use “summer” similarly to denote good times — e.g, the “summer” of one’s life.) Ships were able to carry the most cargo during this calm time. Some ships actually had “I.S.” marked on their hulls at the load level thought safe during Indian Summer.

What do you think?

What other uses of Indian Summer have you heard?

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.

SEPTEMBER

by: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

The golden-rod is yellow;
The corn is turning brown;
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian’s bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun;
In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,
In every meadow nook;
And asters by the brook-side
Make asters in the brook.

From dewy lanes at morning
The grapes’ sweet odors rise;
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of weather,
And autumn’s best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty
Which floods the earth and air
Is unto me the secret
Which makes September fair.

‘T is a thing which I remember;
To name it thrills me yet:
One day of one September
I never can forget.

I doubt we learned the last two verses; I certainly did not remember them. And now I am left wondering what it was that she couldn’t forget!

©2010 Storybook Quilts Rocks!. All Rights Reserved.