the h t u o y of n for o i t a c i l b u p a ers b m e m h t u o SNPJ y cemb er/de er N o v e mvob lu me 96 I s s ue 6 2 0 17 time for the HOLIDAYS + plus Giving Thanks On one day each November, we pause to give thanks just like the Pilgrims did. Did You Know? Feast on our new selection of VOY trivia, just in time for the holidays!
the of youth a publication for SNPJ youth members Volume 96 Issue 6 SNPJ VOICE OF YOUTH (ISSN 0042-8256) (USPS 663-180) is published bi-monthly by the Slovene National Benefit Society 247 West Allegheny Road, Imperial, PA 15126-9774. wrapping up another calendar year Entered as second class matter Jan. 20, 1945, under postal act of Aug. 24, 1912. Magazine began as MLADINSKI LIST in 1922. Submissions should be addressed to The Voice of Youth 247 West Allegheny Road Imperial, PA 15126-9774 Material may also be e-mailed to prosveta@snpj.com or submitted from the Publications area of our website, www.snpj.org. The DEADLINE for submissions to the January/February issue is Dec. 14. We welcome photos, stories, drawings and ideas from all SNPJ youth members. Please make sure your name, age, and Lodge or Youth Circle number are included. Meet the staff Jay Sedmak Editor/Manager Kimberly Winters Associate Editor 2 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017 Welcoming the Holidays It may not be winter yet, but we ll soon be entering a new season the holiday season. A True American Holiday Thanksgiving is the one true, American holiday we celebrate each year. A Tale of Santa s Reindeer Everyone knows Santa has magical reindeer, but their names were a secret for centuries. Did You Know? Just in time for the holidays, you can impress your friends with some Voice of Youth trivia.
the Winding down to the holiday season o f y o u t h a publication for SNPJ youth members What a year it s been! If you haven t noticed yet, there are just about two months remaining in 2017, and those 60 or so days are sure to pass by quickly. So what will you be doing in November and December? If you re anything like most people, you ll be spending the remainder of the year preparing for (and anticipating!) the upcoming holiday season. Now that Halloween is over, everyone will start getting ready for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year s Eve the three major holidays that we all seem to look forward to throughout the entire year. While the holidays are certainly approaching, it s not quite winter yet (winter won t be arriving for another few weeks, on December 21, to be exact). And that means there s still some time to enjoy the remainder of the colorful autumn season. Even if you re more of a warm-weather person, you can always hope for an Indian summer from mid- to late November, just before we celebrate Thanksgiving. We here at The Voice of Youth hope you have a terrific holiday season. Enjoy the time you ll have to spend with family and friends in the upcoming months, and be sure to take advantage of your time off from school during the extended holiday vacation. Have a happy Thanksgiving, a merry Christmas and a great New Year! We ll see you again in January, and by then we ll all be ready to greet the winter months and welcome a brand new year. Editor SNPJ THE VOICE OF YOUTH 3
an all-american Thanksgiving Holiday parades, afternoon football and a turkey dinner that can t be beat. Sound familiar? Like Thanksgiving Day, perhaps? We ve been celebrating Thanksgiving in America for hundreds of years ever since the first colonists landed on America s shores, in fact and we ve even labeled Thanksgiving Day the one, true, American holiday. But there s more to Thanksgiving than Pilgrims, turkey and football... much more. The traditions we associate with America s Thanksgiving holiday have changed dramatically since the first Thanksgivings were celebrated in the New World. The day of Thanksgiving shared by the Pilgrims and Native Americans in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621 which most of us recognize as the first such celebration held in America wasn t quite the first Thanksgiving held in America. Some historians believe that an expedition party, the Frobisher Expedition, celebrated a day of Thanksgiving in North America as early as 1578; others suggest that 38 early New World colonists held a similar celebration in Virginia in 1619. However, it seems as though these earliest American Thanksgivings were little more than days of prayer. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians stretched their 1621 festivities into a three-day feast, celebrating the bountiful harvest that followed the Pilgrims first winter in the New World and setting the wheels in motion for the Thanksgiving holiday we know today. While their first Thanksgiving feast was well-received by the Pilgrims 4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
An annual highlight of the Thanksgiving holiday, the Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade marks its 91st anniversary in 2017. The Tom Turkey float [pictured] has led every Macy s Thanksgiving Day Parade since its introduction in 1971. and Native Americans alike, the Plymouth colonists didn t host another day of Thanksgiving until 1623; this time to celebrate the end of a terrible drought. As the years passed, additional days of Thanksgiving were celebrated at various times throughout the year; most were usually held in late autumn at the conclusion of the harvest. Beginning in the Revolutionary War years, though, the pattern of an American Thanksgiving holiday was beginning to take shape. Following the American victory at Saratoga, and the eventual end to the Revolutionary War, George Washington, who served as the leader of the Revolutionary forces at the time, and the Continental Congress declared a day of Thanksgiving in December 1777 which was continued through 1783. After a five-year period of no celebrations, Washington, who was now serving as president, drafted a proclamation that Thanksgiving again be celebrated, and he also set a date: Thursday, November 26, 1789. Other Presidents declared Thanksgiving holidays (James Madison went as far as to declare two in 1815), but none of these celebrations were scheduled on the same date. With Thanksgiving Day moving around throughout the year, not to mention on and off the calendar, it s surprising that the holiday has survived to this day. We have President Abraham Lincoln, and a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale, to credit for rekindling the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. During the Civil War, shortly after the Union Army victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in the summer of 1863, President Lincoln issued a declaration which designated the fourth Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving. Lincoln s declaration was made at the appeal of Mrs. Hale, who edited several popular ladies magazines in the mid19th century. Sarah Hale believed that American citizens needed to set aside a day to give thanks. Lincoln agreed with her idea, but also felt that a national Thanksgiving holiday might have a unifying effect on the United States population which had been split by the Civil War. The holiday was warmly received in the North, but in the South it was viewed as just another Yankee event. After the war, once North and South began to cooperate and rebuild the United States, Thanksgiving Day was again celebrated nationwide. And so the holiday continued, gaining in popularity, as well as in legend, along the way. While Thanksgiving might have been around for ages, the association with the SNPJ THE VOICE OF YOUTH 5
Pilgrims and their Native American guests didn t develop until the early 1900s when illustrations of the first Thanksgiving began appearing in books and magazines. And what about the turkey? Well, it seems as though the turkey didn t become a popular holiday dish until the birds were domesticated and raised exclusively for eating. Lucky for us that Ben Franklin didn t get his wish to see the turkey named as America s national bird or we d be eating something else on Thanksgiving Day! More recently, Thanksgiving Day has taken on new meaning for the American public. The holiday has become even more popular because of parades, football... and Christmas shopping. The tradition of parades, though never fully documented, most likely started when President Lincoln proclaimed the first official National Thanksgiving Day and has since blossomed into full-scale extravaganzas that include balloons, floats, musical performances and an appearance by Santa Claus. The traditional NFL football games, which annually feature the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys playing at home in their respective stadiums, got their start in 1934 when the Lions hosted the Chicago Bears. The Green Bay Packers had played Thanksgiving Day games prior to 1934, but the team was part of the former American Professional Football Association, the forerunner to the NFL. While turkey and football may satisfy most Americans on Thanksgiving Day, millions of American shoppers delight in Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that is now the traditional kick-off to the Christmas shopping season. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was so eager to tempt Christmas shoppers during the Great Depression that he actually moved Thanksgiving ahead a week in 1939 to allow more time for shoppers to make their annual holiday purchases. Because his Thanksgiving declaration wasn t mandatory, some states stuck to the traditional Thanksgiving schedule, forcing Congress to officially declare Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1941 and President Roosevelt to sign the bill into law on November 26, 1941. So there you have it. From its modest beginnings as a day to give thanks for safe passage and an abundent harvest, Thanksgiving has grown to become the most popular holiday on the modern calendar. And whether you choose to celebrate Thanksgiving as a day of reflection, as a time to spend with family, or simply as a day to relax and enjoy a much-needed break, you too will be taking part in a time-honored, allamerican tradition. d i d yo u KNO W? 6 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017 A Thanksgiving Tradition The Thanksgiving holiday and football games go almost hand-in-hand. The earliest Thanksgiving Day football games, which started way back in the late 1860s, featured college rivals such as Princeton and Yale, a matchup played annually from 1876 to 1881. Today, however, we re most familiar with the NFL games played on Thanksgiving Day: an early game played in Detroit, a late afternoon game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys, and since 2006 a third, nighttime game at a site determined each year by the NFL.
The Story of Santa s Reindeer Santa has had his reindeer forever, right? So it s hard to imagine that we really never knew what Santa named his reindeer or even how many reindeer it takes to fly Santa s sleigh until the 1820s. The first mention of Santa s reindeer by name came via an anonymous poem titled A Visit from St. Nick that was published in 1823. The poem identified six reindeer by name: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet and Cupid. You may think that two of Santa s more popular reindeer, Donner and Blitzen, didn t make that initial list, but that s not exactly the case. Their names were, in fact, included in the poem. If you read the original poem, you ll see that the phrase Dunder and Blixem (which means thunder and lightning in Dutch) was used to express Santa s commands for the reindeer to move quickly. When Clement Clarke Moore rewrote the poem in 1844 under the better-known title of The Night Before Christmas, he translated Dunder and Blixem from the original Dutch to German, changing the names to Donner and Blitzen. And in doing so, Moore identified by name all eight of Santa s magical reindeer. Rudolph (you know, the red-nosed reindeer) the ninth, and arguably the most popular of Santa s reindeer is said to be the son of Donner. His glowing nose made him an outcast among the other reindeer... until that one fateful, foggy, Christmas Eve! SNPJ THE VOICE OF YOUTH 7
did YOU & r e t Win days holi ion edit know? Icicles: The Magic Of Melting Snow Icicles sometimes seem to appear magically; they re nowhere to be found when you re waiting for the school bus, but they re hanging from the gutters when you return home. Where do they come from? Icicles are formed when ice or snow melts and refreezes. The snow on the roof melts faster than the snow on the ground because it s warmed by the heat of the sun (from above) and the heat from your home (from below). The snow begins to drip as it melts, but because the air is still so cold, the drip refreezes before it hits the ground. Each drip that refreezes adds a little more length to the icicle. Not Much To See At The North Pole The North Pole is the Earth s northernmost point. While the South Pole is located on land (it s situated on the continent of Antarctica), the North Pole is located under water, nearly 14,000 feet below the surface of the Arctic Ocean! The water is almost permanently covered in moving ice, which makes it nearly impossible to erect a permanent structure. So maybe the jolly old elf s workshop isn t located exactly at the North Pole. Then again, he is Santa Claus so anything is possible! 8 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
Sweet Dreams Of Thanksgiving Dinner If you suffer from post-dinner drowsiness on Thanksgiving, blame it on the turkey! Specifically, an amino acid called tryptophan which has been proven to cause drowsiness, as well as produce seratonin and melatonin, which create calming effects and regulate sleep. You can also point your finger at the mashed potatoes, stuffing and buttered dinner rolls; meals high in carbohydrates and fats can make you feel sluggish because your body must exert more energry to digest these foods. Add in the overeating and lack of exercise for the day, and you ll find yourself more than ready for a nap! Kiss Under The Mistletoe? Says Who? The mistletoe tradition the one that involves sharing a smooch! is often credited to the Scandinavians, who considered mistletoe a plant of peace. They believed that under a hanging mistletoe, enemies could meet and declare a truce, and arguing spouses could share a kiss and make up. In 18th century England, they believed that each kiss under a mistletoe promised good will, friendship or even marriage! As with many holiday traditions, the magic of the mistletoe eventually made its way to America. In fact, you ll probably find a few hanging in doorways this season. Don t get caught lingering too long... or prepare to pucker up! Warm Welcome From The Wampanoag When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts, they were befriended by some of the 16,000 Wampanoag people, a group of Native Americans who taught the Pilgrims to farm corn, squash and beans, and catch fish. Wampanoag, pronounced WAWMP-ah-nog, means land where the sun rises first, or simply easterners (because the sun rises in the east). Today, only an estimated 2,000 Wampanoag survive, and many still occupy areas of Massachusetts. Figuring Out Figgy Pudding For years, Christmas carolers have demanded Oh, bring us some figgy pudding! You ve probably sung this lyric once or twice yourself, but do you even know what you re asking for? Figgy pudding, also called Christmas pudding or plum pudding, is a cake-like loaf that contains fruits, nuts and alcohol. Although similar to fruit cake, figgy pudding is sweeter and moister. It is also steamed, whereas fruit cake is baked. This difference in cooking techniques results in a distinction in both taste and texture. SNPJ THE VOICE OF YOUTH 9
what s on YOUR MIND? the o f y o u t h a publication for SNPJ youth members Even Santa s wondering why you haven t contributed to The Voice of Youth... We want to hear from you! Send us your drawings, stories, photos and ideas. Address all submissions to: The Voice of Youth 247 West Allegheny Rd. Imperial, PA 15126 See page 2 for details on submitting your materials. 10 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017