About this day of Thanksgiving…

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared that Thanksgiving would be the next-to-last Thursday of November rather than the last. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought this would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would aid bringing the country out of the Depression. At the time, it was considered inappropriate to advertise goods for Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

However, Roosevelt’s declaration was not mandatory; twenty-three states went along with this recommendation, and 22 did not. Other states, like Texas, could not decide and took both weeks as government holidays. Roosevelt persisted in 1940 to celebrate his “Franksgiving,” as it was termed. The U.S. Congress in 1941 split the difference and established that the Thanksgiving would occur annually on the fourth Thursday of November, which was sometimes the last Thursday and sometimes the next to last. On November 26 that year President Roosevelt signed this bill into U.S. law.

Since 1947, or possibly earlier, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys. The live turkey is pardoned and lives out the rest of its days on a peaceful farm. While it is commonly held that this tradition began with Harry Truman in 1947, the Truman Library has been unable to find any evidence for this. Still others claim that that the tradition dates back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son’s pet turkey. Both stories have been quoted in more recent presidential speeches.

In more recent years, two turkeys have been pardoned, in case the original turkey becomes unavailable for presidential pardoning. Since 2003 the public has been invited to vote for the two turkeys’ names and the event has been updated in recent years to include a bird-naming contest, with votes cast on the White House Web site.

Since 1970, a group of Native Americans and others have held a controversial National Day of Mourning protest on Thanksgiving at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Thanksgiving Fun

Be sure to visit Operation Letters to Santa’s Thanksgiving section where you will find all kinds of wonderful things to keep you busy and entertained during the month of November. Be sure to visit our Halloween desktop wallpaper section where you can download vintage FREE Autumn and Thanksgiving desktop wallpapers for your computer every day!

Thanksgiving is a week or so away and Christmas is just around the corner. What better time to browse through the family photo and memento box for Christmas ideas and creating a family scapbook or memory book can be a delightful family past time.

If you don’t consider yourself particularly crafty, the idea of making a scrapbook or memory book can seem like a huge chore. You might even doubt your ability to be creative.

This doesn’t have to be the case! There are ways to create your own memory books with ease, no matter what your level of creativity happens to be. The only things you need are your family photos and the will to succeed.

Use these eight strategies to make your own scrapbooks and memory books:

1. Work on one page at a time. Sometimes, the task of a scrapbook seems like a huge amount of work. Instead of thinking about the project as a whole, break it into small, manageable pieces. Work on one page at a time and enjoy the process until your memories are organized and your scrapbook is complete.
2. Collect embellishments. The embellishments are the parts of the book that aren’t your actual photos. You can use other paper type memories and other designs to mount in your book of memories. Scrapbook and craft stores offer specific embellishments in all sorts of colors and themes. You can also save money by designing your own. Use construction paper to come up with your own designs. You can even print embellishments from your home computer.
3. Decide on a theme or motif. Pick a theme that you’ll carry out throughout your book. For example, you might want to do a book that represents the last year. Or you might choose to create a scrapbook of your summer vacation. This will help you to focus and narrow down your ideas.
4. Choose a color scheme. Pick a color scheme that you like and stick to it. You can make a wacky book with all different kinds of pages, but better results usually come from sticking with a certain color choice just to keep things looking neat.
5. Design a cover. Your cover can also be a nice place to get creative with your book. You might want to include a picture and some kind of description of the book’s theme.
6. Decide on a size. You can make scrapbooks of all different sizes. You may want one that’s small so you can carry it around. A larger scrapbook can hold more photos and provide longer, more fulfilling trips down memory lane later.
7. Utilize a free online graphics design program such as Picnik. Here you can upload your pictures and add frames, create collages and just have a great time making gorgeous images. They have a free option, but if you really want to get creative their Premium Option is only $24.95 per year. Computer graphics programs offer many customization options for your photos and embellishments. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll love expressing yourself and creating a special memory book you can be proud of. (Hint: The image on this post was created in Picnik! We call it Pumpkin Patch Memories.)
8. Digitize your scrapbook. If you familiarize yourself with a computer graphics program, you can create all of your memory books on your computer and have them printed like regular press printed photo books. All you have to do is submit your final design pages and cover to the print company of your choice.

Scrapbooking is a special way to ensure that the most treasured moments of your past are always easy to recall. Instead of allowing the process of creating a scrapbook to overwhelm you, take small steps and enjoy the journey as you relive the most treasured moments of your life.