Well, it’s the day before Thanksgiving, and our fancies lightly turn to thoughts of… turkey. And traffic, of the air or freeway persuasion. Because my stuffing-saturated brain isn’t really cooperating today, I think a holiday-themed post is called for.

In the name of education, I hereby present a list of little-known Thanksgiving fun facts and trivia. The fun part is, one of them isn’t true. Can you figure out which one it is? The first commenter to get it right gets our overwhelming adulation and a mention in the next post. Oh, and maybe a prize if I can track down something good. But no fair Googling the answers!

Let the trivia begin:

• Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada as well as in the U.S., but it’s held in October.
• The first department store Thanksgiving parade was held not by Macy’s, but by Gimbel’s Department Store in Philadelphia, PA.
• The first Thanksgiving proclamation happened in June 1676.
• The first Thanksgiving feast featured ham, not turkey.
• Despite its American Christian overtones, Thanksgiving is actually the latest in a long line of harvest festival traditions enjoyed all over the world for millennia– including many Native American tribes.
• The Wampanoag tribe outnumbered the settlers about two to one at that first feast.
• In the 1700s, Puritans who disapproved of Christmas festivities celebrated Thanksgiving at the end of December instead.
• Thanksgiving wasn’t declared a national holiday until 1864, after years of lobbying by ladies’ magazine editor Sarah Hale, who convinced Lincoln that the Union needed a national holiday to promote unity.