Jody Victor: As we get closer to Christmas, more nostalgia seems to come to mind. Here's a Christmas carol that seems to describe this time of year, known as Silver Bells.

City sidewalks, busy sidewalks.

Dressed in holiday style

In the air there's a feeling of Christmas

Children laughing. People passing

Meeting smile after smile

And on ev'ry street corner you'll hear.

Silver bells, silver bells

It's Christmas time in the city

Ring-a-ling, hear them sing

Soon it will be Christmas day.

Strings of street lights, even stop lights

Blink a bright red and green,

As the shoppers rush home with their treasures.

Hear the snow crunch, see the kids bunch

This is Santa's big scene

And above all this bustle you'll hear.

Silver bells, silver bells

It's Christmas time in the city

Ring-a-ling, hear them sing

Soon it will be Christmas day.

Jody Victor

Jody Victor: Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day, presently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. It did not become a federal holiday until 1941. Thanksgiving was historically a religious observation to give thanks to God, and is still celebrated as such by many families, but is now also considered a secular holiday.

Most Americans celebrate by gathering at home with family or friends for a holiday feast. Though the holiday's origins can be traced to harvest festivals which have been celebrated in many cultures since ancient times, the American holiday is tied to the deliverance of the English settlers by Native Americans after the harsh winter at Plymouth, Massachusetts and that event has become the pre-eminent foundation story for English North America.

The First Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God and the Native Americans for helping the pilgrims survive the brutal winter. Although half of the pilgrims who arrived on the Mayflower had already died, many more would have had it not been for the native Americans teaching the pilgrims to harvest foods. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three whole days providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Indians. The traditional Thanksgiving menu often features turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Americans may eat these foods on modern day Thanksgiving, but the first feast did not consist of these foods. On the first feast turkey was any type of fowl that the pilgrims hunted. Pumpkin pie wasn't on the menu because there were no ovens for baking, but they did have boiled pumpkin. Cranberries weren't introduced at this time. Due to the diminishing supply of flour there was no bread of any kind. The foods included in the first feast included duck, geese, venison, fish, lobster, clams, swan, berries, dried fruit, pumpkin, squash, and many more vegetables.

The first recorded Thanksgiving ceremony took place on September 8, 1565, when 600 Spanish settlers, under the leadership of Pedro Menendez de Aviles, landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and immediately held a Mass of Thanksgiving for their safe delivery to the New World; there followed a feast and celebration. As the La Florida colony did become part of the United States, this can be classified as the first Thanksgiving, although it was not a harvest festival. The Spanish colonial town of San Elizario (San Elceario), near El Paso, Texas, has also been said to be the site of the first Thanksgiving to be held in what is now known as the United States, though that was also not a harvest festival. Spaniard Don Juan de Onate ordered his expedition party to rest and conducted a mass in celebration of thanksgiving on April 30, 1598,

Jody Victor

Jody Victor : Let's take a trip back in history and see what happened on this day - November 16.

1798 - British seamen board the U.S. frigate Baltimore and impress a number of crewmen as alleged deserters, a practice that contributed to the War of 1812.

1813 - The British announce a blockade of Long Island Sound, leaving only the New England coast open to shipping.

1821 - Trader William Becknell reaches Santa Fe, N.M., on the route that will become known as the Santa Fe Trail.

1846 - General Zachary Taylor takes Saltillo, Mexico.

1864 - Union General William T. Sherman departs Atlanta and begins his "March to the Sea."

1892 - King Behanzin of Dahomey (now Benin), leads soldiers against the French.

1902 - A cartoon appears in the Washington Star, prompting the Teddy Bear Craze, after President Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill a captive bear tied up for him to shoot during a hunting trip to Mississippi.

1907 - The Indian and Oklahoma territories are unified to make Oklahoma, which becomes the 46th state.

1913 - Swann's Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust's 7-part novel Remembrance of Things Past, is published.

1920 - Metered mail is born in Stamford, Connecticut with the first Pitney Bowes postage meter.

1945 - Eighty-eight German scientists, holding Nazi secrets, arrive in the United States.

1948 - President Harry S. Truman rejects four-power talks on Berlin until the blockade is removed.

1953 - The United States joins in the condemnation of Israel for its raid on Jordan.

1955 - The Big Four talks, taking place in Geneva on German reunification, end in failure.

1960 - After the integration of two all-white schools, 2,000 whites riot in the streets of New Orleans.

1965 - In the last day of the fighting at Landing Zone X-Ray, regiments of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division repulse NVA forces in the Ia Drang Valley.

1967 - U.S. planes hit Haiphong shipyard in North Vietnam for the first time.

1979 - American Airlines is fined $500,000 for improper DC-10 maintenance.

1982 - The space shuttle Columbia completes its first operational flight.

Jody Victor

Jody Victor : Here's a list of interesting happenings from history on this day, November 9.

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte participates in a coup and declares himself dictator of France.

1848 - The first U.S. Post Office in California opens in San Francisco at Clay and Pike streets. At the time there are only about 15,000 European settlers living in the state.

1900 - Russia completes its occupation of Manchuria.

1906 - President Theodore Roosevelt leaves Washington, D.C., for a 17-day trip to Panama and Puerto Rico, becoming the first president to make an official visit outside of the United States.

1914 - The Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney wrecks the German  cruiser Emden, forcing her to beach on a reef on North Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean.

1918 - Germany is proclaimed a republic as the kaiser abdicates and flees to the Netherlands.

1935 - Japanese troops invade Shanghai, China.

1938 - Nazis kill 35 Jews, arrest thousands and destroy Jewish synagogues, homes and stores throughout Germany. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of the shattered glass.

1965 - Roger Allen LaPorte, a 22-year-old former seminarian and a member of the Catholic worker movement, immolates himself at the United Nations in New York City in protest of the Vietnam War.

1965 - Nine Northeastern states and parts of Canada go dark in the worst power failure in history, when a switch at a station near Niagara Falls fails.

1967 - NASA launches Apollo 4 into orbit with the first successful test of a Saturn V rocket.

1972 - Bones discovered by the Leakeys push human origins back 1 million years.

1983 - Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, is kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million.

Jody Victor

Jody Victor : Here's what happened through history on this day November 2nd!

1783 - Gen. George washington issued his farewell address to the Army near Princeton, N.J.

1795 - James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United states, was born in Mecklenburg County, N.C.

1865 - Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States, was born near Corsica, Ohio

1889 - North Dakota and South Dakota became the 39th and 40th states.

1917 - British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour expressed support for a national home for the Jews of Palestine in what became known as the Balfour Declaration.

1947 - Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden airplane, the Spruce Goose, on its only flight, which lasted about a minute over Long Beach Harbor in California.

1948 - President Harry S. Truman narrowly won re-election over republican challenger thomas E. Dewey.

1959 - Charles Van Doren admitted to a House subcommittee that he had the questions and answers in advance of his appearances on the TV game show "Twenty-One."

1963 - South Vietnamese President Ngo Dihn Diem was assassinated in a military coup.

1976 - Former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter defeated Republican incumbent Gerald R. ford, becoming the first U.S. president from the Deep South since the Civil War.

1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill establishing a federal holiday on the third Monday of January in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

2004 - President George W. Bush was elected to a second term as Republicans strengthened their grip on Congress.

Jody Victor