Thanksgiving began in 1621, but didn\u2019t become a national tradition until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln declared it as such in hopes of bringing a divided nation together. We have many Thanksgiving traditions in this country, from turkey as the meal to the annual Cowboys and Lions games on television. But one of the most beloved is the annual Presidential turkey pardon, in which the U.S. President \u201cpardons\u201d a turkey, allowing them to live the remainder of their live freely roaming on farmland. As we celebrate this Thanksgiving, we thought you\u2019d like to know a little more about the history of this fascinating tradition.<\/p>\n
Farmers have sent turkeys to the White House as far back as the 1800s, hoping to have the honor of providing the President\u2019s annual meal. There have been scattered stories of individual turkeys being \u201cpardoned\u201d throughout that time, including one in which President Lincoln\u2019s son Tad successfully convinced the president to spare a bird intended for the family\u2019s Christmas dinner.<\/p>\n
Starting in 1947, the National Turkey Federation became the official supplier of the President\u2019s Thanksgiving birds. The White House arranged for an annual photo op that year with the President receiving the turkey in the Rose Garden. Sadly, there was no pardon as yet; those birds all ended up on the Presidential table.<\/p>\n
The push for an official pardon picked up steam in 1963, when President Kennedy asked that the bird be spared, just a few days before his assassination. President Nixon opted to send each of the birds he received to a nearby petting zoo after the photo op, though there was no formal pardon attached.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until 1989 that the pardon became official. On November 14 of that year, President George H. W. Bush made the announcement, and sent the bird to a Virginia game preserve to live the rest of its life out in cranberry-and-stuffing-free bliss. Since then, every President has held an annual pardoning ceremony, with the lucky turkey spared the axe and sent off to live in peace. Since 2005, the pardoned birds have gone to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, where they have lived as part of a petting zoo exhibit in Frontierland.<\/p>\n
No matter what traditions you enjoy this holiday, or who you enjoy them with, all of us here wish you a peaceful and happy Thanksgiving weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanksgiving began in 1621, but didn\u2019t become a national tradition until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln declared it as such in hopes of bringing a divided nation together. We have many Thanksgiving traditions in this country, from turkey as the meal to the annual Cowboys and Lions games on television. But one of the most beloved is the annual Presidential turkey pardon, in which the U.S. President \u201cpardons\u201d a turkey, allowing them to live the remainder of their live freely roaming on farmland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[77],"tags":[125],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":816,"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815\/revisions\/816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duallheating.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}