So it's a good time to take a quick look at some fun facts and trivia surrounding Thanksgiving. Please enjoy.

According to the National Turkey Foundation, approximately 690 million pounds of turkey were consumed in the United States during Thanksgiving 2007. This equals the weight of 4.48 million individuals of average weight (154 pounds); the population of Singapore as estimated by the last census in 2005.

2. Mary Had a Little Lamb Author Helped Make Thanksgiving a National Holiday

Sarah Josepha Hale is credited as the person most responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday in the United States. She also authored Mary Had a Little Lamb.

3. Benjamin Franklin: Turkey More Respectable than Bald Eagle

Benjamin Franklin, who proposed the turkey as the official United States' bird, was not happy when the bald eagle was chosen instead. In a letter to his daughter, Franklin referring to the eagle's "bad moral character," said: "For my own part I wish the Eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country" and "For in Truth, the Turk'y is in comparison a much more respectable bird and withal a true original native of America".

4. Franklin Roosevelt Thanksgiving Controversy

In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt changed Thanksgiving to a week earlier than usual so the Christmas shopping season would last longer. There was a tremendous outpouring of public disapproval over the next two years so, in 1941 he admitted his mistake and officially declared the fourth Thursday in November a national holiday for Thanksgiving.

5. Worlds Largest Turkey

The Worlds largest turkey sits just off Route 10, Frazee, MN (Map), also known as the turkey capital of the world.

6. Aldrin and Armstrong First Lunar Meal was Turkey

According to the National Turkey Foundation, when Armstrong and Aldrin sat down to eat their first meal on the moon, their foil food packets contained roasted turkey.

7. Freeze Dried Feast for Astronauts

The seven Endeavour astronauts and three space station crew members enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, cornbread stuffing and green beans.

This also provides an interesting opportunity for our non-US-based readers to get a glimpse into some of the strange goings-on of their American counterparts. No doubt, it will provide more insight into the US culture than we care to divulge.

The video is Windows Media based, so if you're on another platform, you'll need to have the appropriate plugins installed prior to viewing. And another thing, this appears to be traditional traffic cam technology, so take the "streaming" description with a grain of salt. It gets pretty choppy on some of the views.

To get an idea of what's in store, you can view previous years' parades, like this one from last year. To tune in, visit EarthWeb's Thanksgiving 2008.

(Thanks to the_wb for allowing us to use the balloon image under Creative Commons.)