On Thanksgiving Americans Do What?

For some (obvious) reason, every year around this time I think of the year I lived in France when I discovered that for about 24 years I was completely ignorant of an apparently essential part of the Thanksgiving holiday.

I was sitting around a table with a bunch of Americans who were describing the holiday to a French person when I heard one say, “Then we all sit around and watch football.”  All the American heads (except mine) nodded in agreement.

“Wait,” I said.  “Did I miss something?”  Are we talking about Thanksgiving?”

Yes, they all agreed.  Confirming.

“Football?” I said.  “You watch football on Thanksgiving?”

All American heads bobbed their “yeses.”

That was the year that I discovered that football is a part of this holiday.

It also seared into my mind, what probably otherwise would have been a completely unrecalable memory.  My mind flashed back to the one and only Thanksgiving of my life where I ever watched football.  I recalled sitting on my grandmother’s rocking chair, her orange and brown afgan behind me on the chair (where it always was) and rooting for the Patriots.  I may have chosen that team over the other due to their uniform color– I have no idea.  Likewise I have no idea who won, or who else was in the game.  Come to think of it, as I write this, I’m not even sure that was Thanksgiving.  The memory is shockingly devoid of the large amounts of people that would have been present at my grandmother’s during a day like this.  Maybe it was just the one and only time in my life I can ever recall watching that sport with my family.

Needless to say, I won’t be watching football on Thursday.  But I hope you all enjoy your game!