Today is...

National Maple Syrup Day

It’s National Maple Syrup Day! Maple syrup is a distinctly North American product. Canada, the largest supplier of maple syrup, produces over 5 million gallons of it each year!

Native Americans were the first to harvest and boil the sap of the maple tree into a thick syrup—a process that was documented and adopted by early settlers in the 1600s. Tapping a maple tree does no permanent damage to the tree and only 10% of the sap that is produced in a year is actually collected. Many maple trees have been tapped for 150 years or more! Did you know that it takes 30-50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup? Maple syrup can also be boiled down to produce maple cream, maple sugar, and maple sugar candy.

Whether you like your maple syrup as a topping on pancakes, waffles, or vanilla ice cream, enjoy some today in honor of National Maple Syrup Day!

December is National Fruit Cake Month & National Egg Nog Month

images and text courtesy of MyPunchbowl.com" -- http://www.mypunchbowl.com/

History for December 17   1843 - "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens was published. 1903 - The first successful powered-airplane flight took place near Kitty Hawk, NC. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the flight. 1959 - The film On the Beach premiered in New York City and in 17 other cities. It was the first motion picture to debut simultaneously in major cities around the world. 1969 - Television history was made when Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki Budinger were married on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. 1986 - Davina Thompson became the world's first recipient of a heart, lungs and liver transplant. 1992 - U.S. President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. ________________________________________________________ "The purpose of life is a life of purpose." --Robert Byrne