Thanksgiving is a holiday built on big meals, big gatherings, and even bigger stories. It is the kind of day where someone always brings up a random fact that nobody can verify, but everyone enjoys anyway. Here are some real, quirky, and totally shareable Thanksgiving facts you can toss around the table while you wait for the turkey to finish resting.

Let's start with the star of the show. The heaviest turkey ever recorded weighed a staggering 86 pounds. The bird was named Tyson, and it won a championship in the late 1980s. Picture trying to stuff that monster into a roasting pan. Your oven would probably call the police.

While Tyson was a one of a kind superstar, there are still plenty of birds on American plates each November. Roughly 40 million turkeys are eaten on Thanksgiving. That is enough to give every person in California a personal turkey with leftovers to spare.

Speaking of eating, Thanksgiving is not exactly a light day. The average American consumes a little over 2,000 calories during the main meal alone. That does not even include the grazing that happens before and after. Add in leftovers and most people double that total without even noticing. Nobody counts calories on Thanksgiving anyway. It is practically a national rule.

Now let's talk sides. Some dishes unite families. Others start small wars. Surveys consistently show that cranberry sauce sits at the bottom of the list in popularity. People either love it or think it belongs in a gas station vending machine. Mashed potatoes, meanwhile, remain the undisputed champion. There is no official tally of how much we eat nationwide, but it easily lands in the millions of pounds. If potatoes could vote, Thanksgiving would be their election day.