For example, most people probably didn't realize that a typical American eats 13.7 pounds of turkey and 4.7 pounds of sweet potatoes each year. Or that 256 million turkeys are being raised in America this year. Or that U.S. exports of cranberries and sweet potatoes help reduce the nation's trade deficit.

For Robert Bernstein, those are the nuggets that feed his imagination. Bernstein is a public affairs specialist at the Census Bureau, and for eight years he has been collecting and disseminating trivia related to holidays and other observances.