MARK MY WORD: THANKSGIVING HAS HISTORY, NOSTALTIA AND BEER ON ITS SIDE

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and with it, expanded waistlines.

But that seems a small price to pay for turkey and dressing and all the trimmings.

It wouldn't be a truly American holiday without a huge meal. Our nation was founded on the belief that all Americans have a right to party, which explains why the revolution began with the Boston Tea Party.

Of course, if it weren't for all those hungry, football-loving pilgrims we wouldn't even be getting a day off work.

We owe a lot to those early settlers who knew a good turkey when they saw one and weren't afraid to eat it.

The first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 after they counted their blessings -- and then recounted them.

The meal had plenty of finger food. The pilgrims didn't use forks. They didn't have an oven either so they had to send out for pizza.

The nation's first partygoers certainly celebrated with beer, according to the National Beer Wholesalers Association.

With foul water supplies the rule of the day, beer was the beverage of choice as it required brewers to boil water, thus killing microbes that imperiled health.

The pilgrims who set sail on the Mayflower brought along plenty of beer and party nuts. They had hoped to avoid a high-tax state like Massachusetts, but they ended up landing there in December 1620 because they were low on beer as Pilgrim leader William Bradford wrote in his diary.

The settlers considered beer essential to a good society. A brew house was one of the first structures built in the New World during the winter of 1620-1621.

The settlers knew they wouldn't survive without a decent Happy Hour. Even then, they found life a struggle without a good sports bar.

Even with beer to wash it down, it took some time for Americans to embrace the Thanksgiving holiday.

For one thing, they didn't have pumpkin pie or mashed potatoes. The feast did include fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison and plums.

The early Americans didn't realize that Thanksgiving should be held in November. As late as 1676, some folks in Massachusetts, having yet to see a Norman Rockwell painting, were celebrating the holiday in June.

The colonies later celebrated Thanksgiving in October, but the celebration was lost amid the World Series and all the negative political ads.

It wasn't until the National Football League got involved that Americans realized that Thanksgiving needed to be held in the middle of the football season.

George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, although some were opposed to it. There was discord among the colonies, many feeling the hardships of a few pilgrims didn't warrant a New York department store parade.

President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea of having a day of thanksgiving and demanded a recount, which was supported by the Florida Supreme Court, which many Americans viewed as a bunch of turkeys.

It wasn't until the news media jumped on the bandwagon that President Lincoln realized the importance of a Thanksgiving Day football game and declared it a national holiday in 1863, except in Florida where a recount was still underway.

Thanksgiving was proclaimed by every president after Lincoln. Finally, in 1941, Congress sanctioned it as a legal holiday, much to the delight of working Americans who wanted to attend the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

There's nothing like a little history to make us all crave a little turkey and dressing.