In 1953, Swanson began selling its first TV dinner.

What became a basic part of the American diet back in the 1960s (and was the forerunner of today’s fast-food culture) was actually a hasty solution to a big problem—what to do with about 270 tons of leftover Thanksgiving turkey! Gerald Thomas, a C. A. Swanson & Sons executive, had 10 refrigerated railcars full of unsold turkeys. So, Thomas decided, why not package the turkey, along with some side dishes, in segmented trays that were used for airline food service?

To market the idea, the Swanson exec named it TV Dinner—the perfect meal to enjoy while watching that new phenomenon, television. Swanson came out with 5,000 TV dinners featuring turkey, corn bread dressing and gravy, buttered peas, and sweet potatoes. It cost 98 cents and came in a box resembling a TV.

The original 5,000 dinners was a gross underestimation. Swanson went on to sell 10,000,000 TV dinners that first year. Of course, not everyone was thrilled with TV dinners. The Swansons received their share of hate mail, mostly from upset husbands who missed their home-cooked meals.

Those early TV dinners were among the first convenience products offered to American households. Convenient and time-saving products have become an essential part our time-pressured culture. We have convenience stores, drive-through banks, drugstores, cleaners, and fast-food restaurants. Any number of products and services promise us fast, quick, time-saving solutions to our problems.

But there is no such thing as a drive-through church or an instant Christian. The Christian life requires a lifetime investment of daily growth, patience, and perseverance. There are no shortcuts to faith.

I pray that your love for each other will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in your knowledge and understanding (Philippians 1:9).

To Do

Think back on last week. How many times did you eat fast food? Use a drive-through service? What convenience products do you use every day?

Also on this day

1846—Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.

1913—The Lincoln Highway, the first paved coast-to-coast highway, opened in the U.S.

From Betsy Schmitt and Dave Veerman, 365 Trivia Twist Devotions: An Almanac of Fun Facts and Spiritual Truth for Every Day of the Year (Cincinnati: Standard, 2005). Scripture quotations are from the New Living Translation unless otherwise noted.