Blog Posts by Subject: Thanksgiving Day

One of my favorite Thanksgiving Day traditions is sitting down to watch the Macy's parade with a bagel and a cup of tea. Watching the parade helps get me ready for the long day of cooking that awaits.

Although the rapidly approaching holidays usually only induces feelings of anxiety, I do look forward to getting out the cookware and making my tried and true holiday desserts and side dishes such as English trifle, Danish rice pudding (risengrød a la mande) and sweet potatoes baked in a sauce of maple syrup, butter and BOURBON!

A confession: I've never cooked a turkey. Sides, yes. Desserts, of course. But a turkey? Nope. I leave that to the experts. For me, turkey is the least exciting part of Thanksgiving. Sure, it may be the perfect vehicle for cranberry sauce. And turkey leftovers do make for a tasty soup, but if I had my druthers, I'd just as soon stick to chicken.

All this turkey bashing is just my way of explaining why you won't find any turkey basting in my Thanksgiving picks below. Everyone has their own method of preparing the bird, and I certainly wouldn't want anyone taking advice from a turkey novice, like myself. But, based on the delicious — and decidedly non-turkey — recipes 

Cooking is a very stressful situation that I do my best to avoid. I always get really excited and anxious when I decide to cook, but halfway through the process every burner on the stove is on, bowls, plates, and utensils have piled up on the counter, and all I’ve ended up making is a bowl of spaghetti for one. But as Thanksgiving rolls around my mother always asks the dreaded question, "What are you making?" I’m beginning to think that she regrets asking this question because the extent of my culinary assistance on Thanksgiving Day is opening up a can of cranberry sauce and plopping it into the fine china.

With Thanksgiving a few days away, many of us are getting ready to enjoy the wonderful foods of our harvest, spend time with loved ones and reflect on the things for which we are thankful. We know that teachers are also busy creating social studies lessons about the significance of this holiday, especially the contributions of the different groups living in and travelling to the "New World" in the 1600-1700s.  This list of resources was compiled to help teachers and students learn, from a variety of perspectives, how the United States was created. 

When searching for Thanksgiving images in our Digital Gallery, you might be surprised to find a set of about 20 images of Thanksgiving "ragamuffins."  Who are these young beggars and what do they have to do with Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving from The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division! Come see Willem Janszoon Blaeu's Nova Belgica et Anglia Nova in person at the fabulous Mapping New York's Shoreline 1609-2009 exhibition, open today and the Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving in the Gottesman Exhibition Hall located on the first floor of the Stephan A. Schwarzman Building.

Debuting at this years Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will be a 48-foot tall balloon titled Figure with Heart by the late artist Keith Haring. The balloon is based on Haring's ink on paper drawing, Untitled (Figure with Heart), 1987 and will be part of the Macy's Parade's Blue Sky Gallery series, which aims to "inject contemporary art into a pop culture phenomenon". (Pop Art In The Sky) The Blue Sky Gallery series began in 2005 with Humpty Dumpty by Tom Otterness, preceded by “Rabbit” by Jeff Koons in 2007. To learn more about the artist Keith Haring visit the Library and look through our books in the online catalog, as well as go to the Keith Haring Foundation 

 Check out more images here. Happy Thanksgiving!

While trawling through the Digital Gallery’s large section on Thanksgiving, I found this great color postcard that was printed around 1908 or 1908. First of all, I love the word pun. For many years, I used to work out at my local gym in a tee shirt that read “Don’t Worry, Be Hopi” that I’d bought from an Indian arts shop on Second Mesa.

November is Native American Heritage Month. So we should take a moment to recall all the important contributions that our indigenous peoples have made to our society. And if you have forgotten any of them, there’s Jack Weatherford’s classic Indian Givers to remind you of their great number. 

Making its debut at this years Macy’s 81st annual Thanksgiving Day Parade was a brand new 53-foot-tall helium balloon, titled “Rabbit” by local artist Jeff Koons.  It is a new acquisition to the parade’s “Blue Sky Gallery” series.  

“The “Rabbit” is based on the celebrated iconic 1986 sculpture of a reflective stainless steel cast of an inflatable bunny.”

Happy Thanksgiving from the Art & Architecture Division at HSSL. The NYPL Digital Gallery has digitized the “Birds of America” by John James Audubon. This image is “Wild Turkey.” (v.5, pl.287, opp. pg. 42)