Today is...
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!

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December is National Fruit Cake Month & National Egg Nog Month

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

History for December 17th 1843 - Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is first published. 1900 - First prize of 100,000 francs offered for communications with extraterrestrials. Martians excluded-considered too easy 1955 - Carl Perkins wrote Blue Suede Shoes. Less than 48 hours later, he recorded it at the Sun Studios in Memphis. 1976 -  WTCG television station in Atlanta becomes WTBS, first satellite station to cover all of U.S.   1989 -  The premiere of The Simpsons. ______________________________________________________ "A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience." -- Elbert Hubbard