91 years of Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day football!!

Posted on by farlane
Detroit's first Thanksgiving Day game 1934

Detroit’s First Thanksgiving Day Game 1934

I’m thankful for the Lions being a solid football team, for the Pistons leading the Eastern Conference, for friends & family & the turkey I am about to cook and for all of you readers!! Thank you for keeping this interesting and I hope that whatever your plans are, that you take some time to give thanks to those in your life who make it better.

The Detroit Lions will face divisional foe Green Bay Packers in today’s 1pm Thanksgiving Day football matchup. It’s the anniversary of the first-ever NFL Thanksgiving Day game that featured the Detroit Lions and the undefeated Chicago Bears who won the game 19-16. It was also the first year of Detroit Lions football!

The Detroit Historical Museum shares that in 1934 the Portsmouth Spartans made the wise decision to leave Portsmouth, Ohio and rebrand as the Detroit Lions. The Lions have played every Thanksgiving Day since 1934 (except for 1939 to 1944 during World War II) due to the influence of the team’s first owner George Richards who also owned the WJR radio station & whose marketing savvy was a big part of the early success of the National Football League.

In other Lions news, the team made an agreement with Eminem to produce halftime shows. For his first act, Em has lined up Detroit-born Hall of Fame & Grammy winning rocker Jack White along with fellow Detroiter & gospel musician CeCe Winans who will sing the national anthem. And yesterday, they announced the unretirement of All-pro center Frank Ragnow!

OK here’s a few photos from the Detroit Lions of Jameson Flippin’ Williams and a look at the Lions throwback 2025 Thanksgiving Day uniforms to take us out…

Support Michigan in Pictures with Patreon

Drive safely this Thanksgiving!

Posted on by farlane
Thanksgiving Day Parade by Joel Williams

Thanksgiving Day Parade by Joel Williams

Bridge Michigan reports that AAA Michigan is predicting that 2.3 million Michigan residents will drive at least 50 miles between Nov. 25 and Dec. 1, a 1.4% increase from last year that could be higher given continuing air travel delays. mLive shares that the roads could be quite a bit less than optimal with a powerful winter storm expected along with tumbling temps on Wednesday. Snow totals over 3 FEET are possible in the UP with as much as 1 to 2 inches per hour falling. The Lower Peninsula (see NWS Weather Story below) will have high winds as well & wet, heavy snow close to 2 feet in inland Northern Michigan with less as you move south and east. All in all, it looks like a good time to allow more time for your holiday travels!!

Joel has more photos of the parade including the frankly disturbing giant head parade corps in his Detroit Thanksgiving Parade 2014 gallery on Flickr. I also shot a video last year of many of the Big Head Marchers last year!

just don’t look into their eyes by Joel Williams
Big Head Blessings by Joel Williams
Support Michigan in Pictures with Patreon

Hudson’s & the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade

Posted on by farlane
Hudson's Santa at the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade

Hudson’s Santa at the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade

Happy Black Friday! It’s an especially happy one for many since for the first time in eight years, we aren’t mourning a Lions Thanksgiving loss!! Yesterday Detroit also hosted another successful Thanksgiving Day Parade on Woodward Avenue (click for some video highlights) which got me thinking about the roots of this holiday tradition.

Thanksgiving parades were created in the early 20th Century by big department store chains to signal consumers that it was time to start thinking about Christmas shopping. The Holidays at Hudson’s video on Detroit PBS explains that the Motor City was no exception. Hudson’s Department Store provided the staff, resources to help launch the annual parade in 1924. A century later, the Parade remains one of the largest in the country.

While you have to donate to view the whole video, the trailer for Holidays at Hudson’s has some great pics & info. One cool fact is that at its apex when a quarter of a million children a year would visit Santa every year at Hudson’s, they were one of the first stores in the country to offer a choice of Caucasian, Black, Hispanic or other Santas. I’ve got a some old pics, a couple parade photos & a video of the Big Heads below!

Hudson’s Float in front of the new Hudson’s by Andrew McFarlane

Support Michigan in Pictures with Patreon

That old (American) chestnut

Posted on by farlane
Beautiful Chestnuts by Julie Weatherbee

Beautiful Chestnuts by Julie Weatherbee

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Dusting off this feature from 13 years ago (wow!) to help set the table for tomorrow.

Wikipedia’s entry for the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) explains that this large, deciduous tree of the beech family was once one of the eastern United States dominant hardwoods before it was nearly wiped out by chestnut blight. Curiously enough, one of the few pockets to survive were some 600 to 800 large trees in northern lower Michigan. Chestnut Growers, Inc. is a 37 member cooperative based in Michigan explain the difference between edible sweet chestnuts & non-edible horse chestnuts (the spiky ones with the burrs) & offer preparation tips & cooking instructions:

In Europe, chestnuts are consumed in a wide variety of dishes, from soups, stews, and stuffing to fancy deserts. Matter of fact, chestnut flour is the secret to many of the fancy French pastries. In other parts of the world, such as China, the chestnut is a staple food in the peoples’ diet. Chestnuts have about half the calories of other nuts and have the lowest fat content of all the main edible nuts. Chestnuts have only four to five percent fat as compared to sixty-two percent for the hazelnut and seventy-one percent for the pecan. In composition and food value, the chestnut, with its high carbohydrate content of about seventy-eight percent, is more akin to cereal grains, such as wheat, than to nuts with a low carbohydrate content. Since chestnuts are starchy rather than oily, they are readily digestible when roasted or boiled.

Read on for more and suggestions on cooking. They take orders for fresh chestnuts and ship beginning in October, and are at farm markets through the fall. 

Julie bought these Michigan-grown beauties at Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor. Check them out background bigalicious and see more in Julie’s Food gallery on Flickr where she shares some preparation photos & the finished product!

Peeled Chestnut by Julie Weatherbee

Peeled Chestnut by Julie Weatherbee

Support Michigan in Pictures with Patreon

The Highbush Cranberry is not a Cranberry

Posted on by farlane
Highbush Cranberry by Diane Charvat

Highbush Cranberry by Diane Charvat

Michigan is one of the best states in the Union for setting the Thanksgiving table. From gameday starters like Koeze nuts, McClure’s Pickles, Koegel Meats, Faygo pop, and Better Made Chips to sides like American chestnuts, Michigan potatoes & squash (and pumpkin pie) and of course Michigan-raised turkeys!

Another Thanksgiving staple that Michigan produces are cranberries, which are one of just a few fruits native to North America. While we do have about 300 acres of cranberries, there is another “cranberry” that the cranberry people want to make perfectly clear is not an actual cranberry. Green Deane’s Eat the Weeds blog has a great article on the High Bush Cranberry that says (in part):

The High Bush Cranberry is actually a Viburnum (Viburnum trilobum) and a cousin of the elderberry. Both are in the greater Honeysuckle Family and have a characteristic musky odor. That family by the way straddles the edibility line, with some members edible and others not, some tasty and some not. As one might suspect by the name, the High Bush Cranberry has tart fruit. Bradford Angier, a well-known Canada-based forager along side Euell Gibbons, wrote they require a “conditioned palate” to appreciate.

In North America the High Bush Cranberry is found in Canada and the northern half of the United States plus, oddly, New Mexico. It is not as that friendly to wildlife as one might suspect. The fruit persists into the winter because they are not on the top of birds’ preferred food. Birds like the berries after they soften and ferment. White-Tailed deer also browse on the twigs and leaves. For humans the berries are high in Vitamin C, about 30 milligrams per 100 grams. Viburnum trilobum has several disputed botanical names and several mistaken common names including Pimbina, Mooseberry, Cranberry Tree, Cranberry Bush, American Cranberry, and Squashberry.

Read on for lots more including identification tips. They do say that Highbush cranberries taste better when harvested after the first frost so please let me know if you try them! You can also buy Highbush cranberry bushes from your local Conservation District like Van Buren County. There’s much more Michigan Thanksgiving to feast on at Michigan in Pictures too!

Dian took the top photo in Greenville (just northeast of Grand Rapids) and the one below on the Betsie Valley Trail in Benzie County. See her latest pics on her Flickr!

Betsie Valley Highbush Cranberry by Diane Charvat

Betsie Valley Highbush Cranberry by Diane Charvat

Support Michigan in Pictures with Patreon

Dig in for Thanksgiving

Posted on by farlane

Pumpkin Pie by PepOmint

Pumpkin Pie by PepOmint

“I love Thanksgiving because it’s a holiday that is centered around food and family, two things that are of utmost importance to me.”
—Marcus Samuelsson

Can’t agree more with Chef Samuelsson!

I’ve featured this photo from PepOMint before on Michigan in Pictures. Sadly, she has passed on but you can view more of her photos in her Bits & Pieces gallery on Flickr.

Support Michigan in Pictures with Patreon

The Detroit Lions: America’s (Thanksgiving Day) Team

Posted on by farlane

detroit-lions-vs-bears-thanksgiving-1934

Detroit Lions First Thanksgiving Game, photographer unknown

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am very thankful to have so many people who are passionate about Michigan giving me the drive to continue exploring the Great Lakes State through Michigan in Pictures.

I am also thankful that the Detroit Lions are in first place in the NFC North as they head into today’s 12:30 PM game at Ford Field vs the Minnesota Vikings. The Detroit Lions tell the story of the Origin of the Lions’ Thanksgiving Day Game:

The game was the brainchild of G.A. Richards, the first owner of the Detroit Lions. Richards had purchased the team in 1934 and moved the club from Portsmouth, Ohio to the Motor City. The Lions were the new kids in town and had taken a backseat to the baseball Tigers. Despite the fact the Lions had lost only one game prior to Thanksgiving in 1934, the season’s largest crowd had been just 15,000.

The opponent that day in 1934 was the undefeated, defending World Champion Chicago Bears of George Halas. The game would determine the champion of the Western Division. Richards had convinced the NBC Radio Network to carry the game coast-to-coast (94 stations) and, additionally, an estimated 26,000 fans jammed into the University of Detroit Stadium while thousands more disappointed fans were turned away.

Despite two Ace Gutowsky touchdowns, the Bears won the inaugural game, 19-16, but a classic was born.

Read on for more and definitely check out this MMQB article on Turkey Day in Detroit featuring Detroit sportswriter Mike O’Hara and some more great old photos.

Go Lions!!

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Posted on by farlane

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, photo by Rick Corriveau

I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.
~Henry David Thoreau

I hope you have much to be thankful for, today and every day, within and without. I am thankful for all of you who give me reason to keep doing something that I dearly love – sharing photos of this beautiful and diverse place. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!

Also sorry folks – had this scheduled for first thing this morning I thought!!

Rick says he’ll take one drumstick please! View his photo bigger and see more in his Birds slideshow.

Make Mine a Michigan Thanksgiving: High Bush Cranberry Edition

Posted on by farlane

Highbush Cranberries by Blondieyooper

Cranberries, photo by Blondieyooper

One thing that I love is Thanksgiving dinner, and another is Michigan grown food. Dianna at Promote Michigan brings those together with 15 things that make Thanksgiving Pure Michigan. From starters like Koeze nuts, McClure’s Pickles, Koegel Meats, and Leelanau Cheese to sides like Michigan potatoes & squash to Michigan-raised turkeys and (of course) pumpkin & apple pie and ice cream!

One Thanksgiving staple that Michigan is producing more of are cranberries, and you can get all kinds of information from the US Cranberry Marketing Committee. While it’s too late to get them this year, we have another cranberry that grows in Michigan you might not be aware of. Green Deane’s Eat the Weeds is a great blog, and his page on the High Bush Cranberry says (in part):

The High Bush Cranberry is actually a Viburnum (Viburnum trilobum) and a cousin of the elderberry. Both are in the greater Honeysuckle Family and have a characteristic musky odor. That family by the way straddles the edibility line, with some members edible and others not, some tasty and some not. As one might suspect by the name, the High Bush Cranberry has tart fruit. Bradford Angier, a well-known Canada-based forager along side Euell Gibbons, wrote they require a “conditioned palate” to appreciate.

In North America the High Bush Cranberry is found in Canada and the northern half of the United States plus, oddly, New Mexico. It is not as that friendly to wildlife as one might suspect. The fruit persists into the winter because they are not on the top of birds’ preferred food. Birds like the berries after they soften and ferment. White-Tailed deer also browse on the twigs and leaves. For humans the berries are high in Vitamin C, about 30 milligrams per 100 grams.

Viburnum trilobum has several disputed botanical names and several mistaken common names including Pimbina, Mooseberry, Cranberry Tree, Cranberry Bush, American Cranberry, and Squashberry.

Read on for lots more including identification tips. There’s much more Michigan Thanksgiving to feast on at Michigan in Pictures too!

Blondieyooper says she picked over 8 pounds of these gorgeous highbush cranberries in the UP back in October of 2011. View her photo background bigilicious and see more in her Fall 2011 slideshow.

Bears, it’s what’s for (Thanksgiving) dinner!

Posted on by farlane

Thinking About the Zoo Visitors?

Thinking About the Zoo Visitors?, photo by Maia C

A very happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I remain very thankful that I have such a great group of photographers and readers for Michigan in Pictures. I love doing this blog, and your support makes it possible!

Maia suggests that this lion is perhaps thinking about zoo visitors, but my personal theory is that he’s thinking about bears, Chicago Bears to be exact! Thankfully, the NFL has given us the opponent who started it all, as the Detroit Lions share the history of the Thanksgiving Day game:

The game was the brainchild of G.A. Richards, the first owner of the Detroit Lions. Richards had purchased the team in 1934 and moved the club from Portsmouth, Ohio to the Motor City. The Lions were the new kids in town and had taken a backseat to the baseball Tigers. Despite the fact the Lions had lost only one game prior to Thanksgiving in 1934, the season’s largest crowd had been just 15,000.

The opponent that day in 1934 was the undefeated, defending World Champion Chicago Bears of George Halas. The game would determine the champion of the Western Division. Richards had convinced the NBC Radio Network to carry the game coast-to-coast (94 stations) and, additionally, an estimated 26,000 fans jammed into the University of Detroit Stadium while thousands more disappointed fans were turned away.

Despite two Ace Gutowsky touchdowns, the Bears won the inaugural game, 19-16, but a classic was born. Since 1934, 69 games have been played with the Lions holding a series record of 33-34-2 (.493). And each game, in its own way, continues to bring back memories of Thanksgiving, not only to Lions’ fans, but to football fans across the nation.

View Maia’s photo big as a lion and see more in her Detroit Zoo Spring/Summer 2008 slideshow.

More Thanksgiving features & photos and more Detroit Lions on Michigan in Pictures.