National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation is a ceremony that takes place at the White House every year shortly before Thanksgiving. The President of the United States is presented with a live domestic turkey, usually of the Broad Breasted White variety. Generally the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board are involved. Since 1989 during the first Thanksgiving of President George H. W. Bush, the president has granted the turkey a "presidential pardon" and thus spared the bird from being slaughtered.
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