November 26, 2015 – NATIONAL CAKE DAY – THANKSGIVING DAY – NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING – NATIONAL TURKEY FREE THANKSGIVING DAY

                                       NATIONAL CAKE DAY

Today celebrates a dessert that you will find at almost everyone’s birthday party regardless if they are age 1 or over 100.  It is also very commonly the  dessert of choice at bridal showers, baby showers,  wedding receptions, anniversary parties, retirement celebrations, graduations and so many other gatherings and social events.  Cake is often served with ice cream.  Cake is a dessert or snack favorite of millions of people across the nation, even if it is not part of a celebration.   November 26th celebrates cakes each year on National Cake Day.
It may be a bundt cake, cake roll, layer cake, sheet cake, yeast cake, sponge cake, butter cake, fruitcake, cheesecake or one of the many other kinds of cake. It may be made at home from scratch, or from a box mix or picked up from the bakery or grocery store.  Whichever way, a cake can be one, or a combination of,  thousands of flavors.

No one can know how many, as there are countless cake recipes, some of which are bread-like, some rich and elaborate and many are centuries old.

Once considered laborious and time consuming, today, baking equipment and directions have been simplified the process and making cakes can now be enjoyed by both, professional and amateur  alike.

Cakes typically contain a combination of flour, sugar, eggs and butter or oil, with some variety of liquid which may be milk or water, along with a leavening agent such as yeast or baking powder.  Flavorful ingredients are often added, for example; chopped nuts, fresh, candied or dried fruit, fruit purees or extracts.  Cake can be enjoyed with or without frosting or icing.  

There is a long history in the term “cake”.  The word itself has a Viking origin from the Old Norse word “kaka”.
OBSERVE
Enjoy the following “tried and true” cake recipes:
Black Forest CakeLemon Pudding CakesZucchini CakePineapple Pudding Cake
Use #NationalCakeDay to post on social media.
HISTORY

Within our research, we were unable to find the creator of National Cake Day, an “unofficial” national holiday.

Thanksgiving Day – Fourth Thursday in November

THANKSGIVING DAY

Thanksgiving Day is celebrated each year in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November.

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
OBSERVE
In many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. Turkey, a Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted the inaugural feast in 1621. Today, however, nearly 90 percent of Americans eat the bird—whether roasted, baked or deep-fried—on Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation. Other traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less fortunate.
Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States. Presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has “pardoned” one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.
Use #ThanksgivingDay to post on social media.
HISTORY
THANKSGIVING AT PLYMOUTH
In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers—an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.
Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower’s sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.
This history of Thanksgiving provided bywww.History.com. For more information on Thanksgiving, go to http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving/history-of-thanksgiving.
Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened the year’s harvest and prompted Governor Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States; in it, he called upon Americans to express their gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country’s war of independence and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies.
In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale—author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.
DATES
November 27, 2014
November 26, 2015
November 24, 2016
November 23, 2017
November 22, 2018

 

National Day of Mourning – Fourth Thursday in November
Image Credit: http://www.drsheilaaddison.com

NATIONAL DAY OF MOURNING

National Day of Mourning is observed annually on the fourth Thursday in November.
The organizers consider the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day as a reminder of the democide and continued suffering of the Native American peoples. Participants in the National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. They want to educate Americans about history. The event was organized in a period of Native American activism and general cultural protests. The protest is organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE). Since it was first organized, social changes have resulted in major revisions to the portrayal of United States history, the government’s and settlers’ relations with Native American peoples, and renewed appreciation for Native American culture.
This information provided by Wikipedia.org.  Please click on the link for more information on the National Day of Mourning.
CELEBRATE
Use #NationalDayOfMourning to post on social media.
HISTORY
The National Day of Mourning is an annual protest organized since 1970 by Native Americans of New England on the fourth Thursday of November, the same day as Thanksgiving in the United States. It coincides with an unrelated but similar protest, Unthanksgiving Day, held on the West Coast.
DATES
November 27, 2014
November 26, 2015
November 24, 2016
November 23, 2017
November 22, 2018
 

Turkey Free Thanksgiving – Fourth Thursday in November

TURKEY FREE THANKSGIVING

Turkey Free Thanksgiving  is celebrated annually on the fourth Thursday in November.
OBSERVE
Enjoy Thanksgiving without a turkey .Use #TurkeyFreeThanksgiving to post on social media.