Thanksgiving Day: 5 Weirdest Traditions Ever

Thanksgiving is a day of family, food and traditions, but people get up to strange things on the holiday than you might imagine!

Here are 5 of the craziest Thanksgiving traditions ever:

1. National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation

US President George Washington in National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation (Photo: Culture trip)

Since the 1940’s and officially since 1989, US Presidents have been ‘pardoning’ a turkey prior to Thanksgiving. In a televised ceremony, the President is presented with a live domestic turkey which he ‘pardons’. The turkey is then sent to live out its days at Mount Vernon, the former estate of President George Washington as opposed to ending up as someone’s dinner. Each year at Thanksgiving, the leader of the free world is required to drag some helpless turkey into a public space and offer the poor creature a presidential pardon. It's basically a formal declaration to the turkey that says, "we will not be eating your for dinner this year, my friend." George H.W. Bush made the whole turkey pardon shtick a national tradition in 1988, as cited in Thrillist.

2. Turkey Bowling

Turkey bowling (Photo: Culture trip)

Forget bowling balls and bowl with a frozen turkey this Thanksgiving using soda or water bottles as makeshift pins. This hilarious tradition started in 1988 at Lucky’s grocery shop in Newport Beach, where the bowling took place in the alleys of the store, according to culture trip.

3. Turkey Toss

The man is throwing dressing turkey (Photo: pottsmerc)

In Indianapolis, Indiana some high school athletes started a tradition of dressing turkeys (not live ones, don’t worry) in baby onesies, lighting them on fire and throwing them across a football field. If you thought you were supposed to flip turkeys like pizza dough, you've been led astray. But all the same, every year, there are people who congregate to test how far and high they can sling frozen turkeys. If you're thinking that sounds like a waste of a turkey, you are correct. These sorts of contests are particularly popular in Indianapolis, Indiana where locals like to light their poultry on fire before competing. High risk, super low reward. Shocker, they are still doing it, cited Thrillist.

4. North Tech pie-throwing

The man after pie-throwing event (Photo: Culture trip)

At the North Technical High School in Florissant, Missouri, Thanksgiving marks an annual pie-throwing event where students get to launch pies at the faculty and administration. This seems like something the world could get into.

5. Pie Eating Contest

The man is eating pie cake (Photo: Thrillist)

We're not really sure why mass-eating contests exist at all, but apparently, people love to shove things like hot dogs and pie-slices down their throats at alarming rates to earn some form of clout that doesn't really sound like clout. Either way, around Thanksgiving, local communities all over the country gather for pumpkin pie eating contests where participants gobble pies without the use of their hands. This feels like a great way to contract a taste aversion to pumpkin pie until next year's eating contest.

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