We don’t like these Yankee customs like Thanksgiving and the New England Patriots

Around the South, people didn’t always take kindly to Thanksgiving. Before the Civil War when bad blood began to rise between the North and South, Thanksgiving was a considered a Yankee tradition. It started and grew in New England which was an abolitionist area. Some southerners treated the holiday with disdain in the mid 1850s, while Northern men-of-the-cloth used it as another talking point to preach the sins of human bondage.

But it wasn’t just about slavery. The rivalry between the two halves of the nation began to grow almost from the beginning. Part of it was pride – Virginia considered itself to be the rightful center of America, for example. Some Southern leaders thought people would just use it as a chance get drunk. Others thought it was a plot to take the “holiday crown” from Christmas as the most important holiday.

Here are other ways Southerners showed their displeasure with the North:

– Southern parents wouldn’t send their kids to Northern universities.

– Southern households avoided subscribing to or reading Northern newspapers, books and other publications.

– Southern football fans wouldn’t watch Tom Brady until he left the Patriots and joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

– Southern militia stood at the Mason-Dixon line on routes leading to Atlanta, holding signs discouraging people moving there. Signs read “Go Home Yankee! We Don’t Want Your Sons Doing Shots of Jaegermeister in Buckhead While Trying To Get Our Daughters’ Phone Numbers!” and “Yankees Don’t Have No Famous Authors With a Drinking Problem! Go Home and Write a Book!”

– Southern lawmakers made it illegal for Northerners to use phrases like “Bless your heart.”

– Any Northerner saying, “That’s too much butter!” was carried off, chair and all, and thrown into the nearest fishing hole.

– Any Northerner forgetting to say “please” and thank you,” was quickly rapped on the knuckles with a copy of “How to Train you Loud Northerner Visitor in Manners and Customs of the South.”

– Southern courts made it a crime to drink unsweetened tea.

– When Northerners asked, “Aren’t North and South Carolina the same place?”, Southerners would attack them with Bibles and large, heavy stacks of Myrtle Beach postcards.

Over time, many southern governors accepted the tradition and made it official in their state. Sarah Josepha Hale approached Lincoln about making it a national holiday and he did so on Oct. 3, 1863, saying, “Because every NFL team I back has only a 12 percent chance of a winning record, I declare Thanksgiving a national holiday so we can remember the blessings God has bestowed upon us and not dwell on the Detroit Lions.”