8 days until Christmas…
National Maple Syrup Day in North America
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!
Bhutan’s National Day
Pope Francis’s birthday (1936)
Anniversary of:
• PM Harold Holt disappearing while swimming off a beach near Portsea, Victoria (1967)
• The Simpsons premiered on the telly (1989)
Facts about the Simpsons:
1. THE SIMPSONS WAS SUPPOSED TO PREMIERE IN SEPTEMBER.
The Simpsons was originally planned to premiere earlier in the fall of 1989, but because of animation problems, the series began on December 17 with “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire.” The original pilot, “Some Enchanted Evening,” later aired as the season finale.
2. MARGE SIMPSON WAS SUPPOSED TO GET DRUNK IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS.
According to Al Jean, the original premise of the episode was that “Homer was worried that Marge was going to get drunk at a party and get him in trouble at the office.”
5. BARNEY LOOKED A BIT DIFFERENT IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS.
In the first episode, Barney had yellow hair, which was the same color as his skin. This was later changed because the people behind the show thought that only members of the Simpson family should have yellow hair.
6. LISA REALLY WANTED A PONY IN THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS.
Lisa asks for a pony six times on her Christmas list (it’s her first line in the series). She would later get her pony in the season 3 episode “Lisa’s Pony.”
SANTA’S LITTLE HELPER WENT MISSING.
Because “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” was originally meant to be the eighth episode, Santa’s Little Helper is mysteriously absent from the next episode (“Bart the Genius”). According to DVD commentary, the creators of the show received letters of praise for heightening the awareness of the abandonment of racing dogs even though they didn’t know it was a real problem when they created the episode.
