10 Cool Thanksgiving Fun Facts To Impress Your Friends

Thanksgiving has been celebrated in the United States for nearly 400 years. What started as a feast between a few people has turned into a holiday celebrated by millions of Americans. Being a family friendly restaurant in Des Moines, we obviously love any holiday mainly revolving around food. This one even has the added bonus of a day full of football too. 

Wobbly Boots Roadhouse has pulled together a few interesting facts about Thanksgiving for you. Whip a few of these out at the dinner table and impress your family and friends with your extensive holiday knowledge!

#1
The first Thanksgiving took place in 1921 between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe, and it lasted for 3 days. Today, we tend to eat for about an hour, take a nap, wake up and have a snack, and then spend the days after our Thanksgiving searching for Christmas shopping bargains!

#2
Thanksgiving didn't become a national holiday until 1863. After years and years of letters from Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor best known for writing "Mary Had A Little Lamb," Abraham Lincoln was finally convinced to make the holiday official. 

#3
President Lincoln placed Thanksgiving on the 4th Thursday in November, but it moved for a couple of years. In 1939, President Roosevelt thought it would be a good idea to move it up a week to the 3rd Thursday in November. This was meant to lengthen the shopping season and boost the Depression-era economy. It didn't quite catch on, and after 2 years it was changed back to the original week.

#4
Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter expressing his feelings about the popular Thanksgiving bird. In this letter, he wrote about how he wished the bald eagle had not been chosen to represent the country because it was a bird of "bad moral character." In his opinion, the turkey is a much more "respectable bird." If the turkey had been chosen as our national bird, would we still eat it every Thanksgiving? 

#5
Swanson ended up with tons of extra frozen turkeys in 1953 after the Thanksgiving holiday. Some brilliant person proposed that they package the leftover birds along with a few tasty sides in an aluminum tray. From that idea, the first TV dinner was born.

#6
If Thanksgiving is your favorite holiday, you can make plans next year to celebrate it twice! Canada also observes Thanksgiving, but they hold it on the 2nd Monday in October. Take an early trip up north and hit both holidays.   

#7
If simply eating turkey isn't enough for you, you can live in Turkey and not even have to leave the U.S.A. Your choices include: Turkey, Texas; Turkey, North Carolina; Turkey Creek, Louisiana; and Turkey Creek, Arizona.

#8
The original Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924 included the store's employees in vibrant costumes, floats, bands, and live animals from the Central Park Zoo. Today, you won't see zoo animals marching down the street, but you will see lots of gigantic character balloons. 

#9
Football has become as much a Thanksgiving tradition as turkey and stuffing. In 1882, the Intercollegiate Football Association decided to hold an annual collegiate championship game in New York City on Thanksgiving Day. Many college teams built some famous holiday rivalry games around this holiday. 

#10
The NFL started holding Thanksgiving Day games in 1920. Today, there are always 3 big games held on the holiday. One game always features the Detroit Lions, another always includes the Dallas Cowboys, and the teams for the third game change every year.  

This year, our beloved Iowa Hawkeyes will be taking on the Cornhuskers the day after Thanksgiving. Joining us at the best place to watch sports in Des Moines is way more fun than fighting the Black Friday crowds! The fun will continue on Saturday as the Iowa State Cyclones host West Virginia. With 17 TVs placed all around the restaurant, there's not a bad seat in the house.  

Wobbly Boots Roadhouse will have our incredible football specials available for every game over the holiday. These include $3 Tall Boys from the bar and many of our delicious appetizers priced at only $5! If you didn't bring home enough leftovers from Thanksgiving to satisfy your turkey cravings, we've also got the best smoked turkey in Iowa waiting here for you. Have an incredible Thanksgiving holiday with your family and friends, then head on over to the Boot to spend a weekend full of food, football, and fun right here with us. 

Don't forget you can take home 16 oz. bottles of Wobbly Boots House Recipe BBQ Sauce!!

New Second Location - Same Incredible BBQ!

Open EVERY DAY at 11:00 AM!

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Wobbly Boots Roadhouse

1301 NW 114th St
Clive IA 50325

(515) 223-5700