Wishing you and your family a happy, blessed, and safe Holiday!

Most of us know that in 1863 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be a national holiday and day of Thanksgiving. In the 20th century President Franklin Roosevelt modified the date of Thanksgiving slightly to make it fall earlier in November. The rationale for this was to extend the Christmas shopping season by a week in the midst of the Great Depression.

Some interesting 2011 Thanksgiving statistics are:

1)    There are expected to be 248 million turkeys raised in 2011. This means that every man, woman and child in the U.S. could eat over half a turkey, and there would still be some leftovers.

2)    The total weight of all of the turkeys produced in 2010 came in at over 7 billion pounds.

3)    The states of Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia and Indiana produce nearly two-thirds of the nation’s turkeys.

4)    On average, each American consumed a yearly amount of 13.3 pounds of turkey in 2009. This is spread out over the entire year, so not all 13.3 pounds was eaten at Thanksgiving. However, a sizable portion would be.

5)    750 million pounds of cranberries are expected to be produced in 2011.

6)    About 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins were grown in 2010, making billions of pumpkin pies a possibility. The state of Illinois produced over a third of the pumpkins. California, Ohio, and New York collectively produced another third of them.

However you choose to celebrate the Holiday, we at AFG Realty are thankful that we have you to write to. We wish and pray for the very best for you and your family this Holiday season! We are so very thankful for the men and women that fight on our behalf so we have the liberty to write this blog. We are so grateful for our family and friends and so blessed to have clients and business associates that help provide the income that puts the food on our table!

From all of us at AFG Realty, Happy Thanksgiving!