Tune In for Turkey Day TV

If your house is like mine on Thanksgiving Day, there’s one appliance in constant use: the television.

Throughout the day’s events, Thanksgiving TV programming is as much a predictable and time-honored tradition as putting a turkey on the table. It starts in the morning with coffee on the couch and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, then rolls into a light lunch or appetizers during the National Dog Show, then finally draws to a close with dessert and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (with mounds of stuffing and meat somewhere in between).

I’ll admit that for a bit, I felt having the television on seemed to be in direct conflict with the holiday. Family and friends gathering – and in some cases, this being  one of the few times a year this happens – means the house should be filled with chatter and silverware clanging and laughter…not Uncle Ralph screaming at the game. “People - talk to each other! We’re family! How are you? What’s new with work or school or life? Seen any good movies lately?” If conversation lulled, there were a myriad of topics to be thrown out.

"Since we don't have TV, let's just keep eating!" 

What I found, though, is when I took a more active role in preparing the meal, I wasn’t at liberty to lounge on the sofa and direct the dialogue. If you’re hustling supper in the kitchen and you don’t have a gregarious bunch of relatives, you mind find them sitting together in silence. That’s when I decided to make the television work for me. If you can’t be in the room to carry the conversation, let the boob tube do it for you.

This won’t necessarily happen on its own. While some families will take advantage of football games or commercials to introduce convo topics, others may still sit in silence staring at the moving pictures. *insert glazed over, blank expression*

By no means am I suggesting your family spends the entire day in front of the television. But, if TV viewing is on the agenda, give them a few incentives to make the most of their time together.

TV Trivia

Create quizzes for folks to fill out while watching those tried-and-true Thanksgiving shows.

• How many balloons will be in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?
• Who’s hosting the parade this year?
• What did Charlie Brown serve for Thanksgiving dinner?
• etc.

These quizzes can be taken while the live show airs or after. Have small prizes on hand for winners. Or, maybe losers do the dishes, eh?

According to Channel Guide Magazine’s blog, there are 2 Thanksgiving marathons you can also tune into on November 28th…

Friends – Our favorite folks from NYC will be airing from 10am – 5pm on TBS. (It would be worth watching just to catch the Thanksgiving episode where Joey wears Phoebe’s maternity pants, claiming they are his “Thanksgiving pants.”)

Harry Potter – ABC Family will air a three-day marathon of all Harry Potter movies, concluding with the network TV premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Accio remote!

Raise the interactive factor here and have the official trivia games on hand for folks to play during the shows. Go to Amazon.com this week, and for $20 - $40, you can have Friends and Harry Potter trivia games shipped right to your door in plenty of time for Turkey Day.

The moral of this story: go with the flow. If the fam wants to turn on the TV on Turkey Day, don't stop them. Make it a part of the tradition.