Good morning and greetings, December fans. Yes, the Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, as records were shattered in the consumption of stuffing department. I am left with a very pleasant memory, along with 72 cans of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce to commemorate this blessed occasion.

To year round cranberry sauce lovers, I say, crave the wave. Your taste buds will thank you.

Now in last week’s post, I looked ahead to the holiday, previewing how others celebrated this glorious gathering of food and stress. So with the sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie and green beans now just a low carb memory, I thought I would take a look back at the holiday that brings some families together while ripping others apart.

As I’ve always maintained, be someone that brings out the best in you, not the stress in you.

Now first of all, the Pilgrims did not celebrate this festival with Trader Joe’s turkey gravy. Back in 1621, they decided to throw themselves a rave party to celebrate the harvest, so for the fixings, the men went “fowling,” as in the hunting of wild birds. Then a group of Wampanoag Indians showed up with five deer and enough deviled eggs, spinach dip and stuffed mushrooms for 50.

Looking back upon this first feast, the menu was quite exotic for the times. There was lobster, fish, sushi, chicken, rabbit, flank steak, squashes, dried fruits, aging movie stars, eggs, goat cheese, tater tots, chestnuts, hickory nuts, shrimp toast and spring rolls.

Not making it to the table were mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, bagels, corn on the cob, cranberries, whitefish salad and the most important item, gravy, which we all know is a key component to the success of the meal. And no forks were used for this feast, as this utensil didn’t make an appearance in North American until the 19th century. So we’re talking spoons, knives, fingers, chopsticks and slingshots.

Historians say the party raged on for three days, and included the 50 surviving Pilgrims and 90 Indians, as they ate, played party games, shot guns for fun and watched football and the Macy’s Day Parade.

Now according to my sources in the South Pacific, long before the Pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower, native Hawaiians were celebrating the longest Thanksgiving in the world. This holiday was called Makahiki, and lasted four months, from November through February. During these months of celebration, work, war, surf contests and reruns of “Magnum, P.I.” were forbidden.

So there was no mention of turkey at this original Thanksgiving. And let’s face it, when we think about this holiday, turkey is the number one bird on the hit list. The great American statesmen, Ben Franklin, wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the United States. Me, I always favored the peacock.

So here’s a few fun facts about the approximately 45 million turkeys that were consumed and then exhumed on Thanksgiving.

There is evidence that turkeys have been around for 10 million years, or right around the making of the pilot episode of “Law and Order.”

Only male turkeys can pull off the gobble gobble routine, which is a seasonal call that drives the females crazy during their mating periods. Hens prefer to cluck, like in get me the cluck out of here.

Domesticated turkeys, or farm raised, cannot fly. So they go Amtrak. The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed in at a hefty 86 pounds, about the size of a large German Shepard or an small Austrian sheep herder.

Now here’s an unusual fact. Due to white meat being the most delectable and popular part of the turkey, these large birds have been bred to have huge breasts. As a result, the female’s backs are always killing them.

Now this takes all the fun out of the equation for both sexes because the domesticated turkeys are no longer able to mate, due to the breasts getting in the way of the mounting of the female. So they have to settle for a romantic dinner, a movie, then on to some heavy petting before they call it a night. Chickens have all the luck.

And finally, let’s give a shout out to Sara Josepha Hale, a magazine editor who is the author of the popular nursery rhyme, “Mary had a little lamb.” She urged President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of Thanksgiving, as until 1863, the holiday had not been celebrated annually since the first feast back in 1621. She believed the day would unite Americans in the midst of dramatic social and industrial change and awaken our hearts for love and home and country.

And most importantly, it would create a day for Americans to wake up at the crack of dawn, so they can get in line to wait for the stores to open at great malls of our nation. We know it as Black Friday, a consumer’s dream come true, and just the way God created it. Because only in America, do people trample other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.

So for our holiday photo session, we are returning to Thanksgiving morning, 2014. I had slept in till 6:30, but when I saw that red glow on the eastern horizon, I dashed out of the house, parked the car at Bird Rock and sprinted down West Cliff to catch the amazing glow of the red clouds above Monterey Bay, before catching the sunrise over at Steamer Lane. Just a spectacular way to the start off the holiday.

On to some best of late night humor. “Yesterday New Jersey Governor Chris Chistie was asked about the slow pace of his weight loss and said, quote, ‘Rome was not un-built in a day.’ In fact, Christie and Rome have a lot in common: one was built by Julius Caesar, and the other was built by LITTLE Caesar.” – Jimmy Fallon “Ted Cruz of course, was furious that the big storm back east shut down the government. He said, ‘That my job!’ But you know, there is a big difference between Ted Cruz and snow. Both are white and everyone’s sick of them – but eventually snow goes away.” – Bill Maher

“The Arizona legislature passed a bill that would allow business owners asserting their religious beliefs to deny service to gay customers. Some businesses have already put up signs that read: ‘Nice shirt, nice shoes, no service.'” – Seth Meyers “Presidents Day, of course, started out as celebration of Washington’s birthday. Then someone remembered it was Lincoln’s birthday on the 12th. So now we celebrate Washington, Lincoln and all the other Presidents. I have no idea how this led to mattress sales. It’s probably something do with Bill Clinton.” – Craig Ferguson

“Yesterday the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks advanced to the big game, which means this year’s Super Bowl will have teams from the two states where recreational marijuana is legal. Or as pizza delivery men put it, ‘Pray for us.'” After the president’s State of the Union address, there will be three separate Republican rebuttals. Obama said, ‘Yeah, I live with two daughters, my wife and my mother-in-law. Three people telling me I’m wrong is a holiday.'” – Jimmy Fallon

So welcome to December. We’ll catch doubling your scoring average for the third straight season while nailing the three ball. Aloha, mahalo and later, Draymond Green fans.