Giving Thanks...

Football and Thanksgiving have become so intertwined over the past 68 years that we consider it a tradition to be stuffed full of turkey and all the trimmings of Thanksgiving and watch football throughout the day. Now with the addition of the Thanksgivings night football game that was recently added three years ago, it brings me to a point of unclearness of what we are actually celebrating. Are we celebrating the thankfulness we have for the sport of professional football or how thankful we are for family and friends?

Before I go any deeper into this discussion about what we are giving thanks to, I want to let you know I am one of the biggest sports fan you will probably ever meet. Anytime there is any kind of sporting event on, I am the one putting it on the television or trying to listen or watch the game any way possible. Also coming from a state where sports dominate the media and the news for most of the year has helped form me into being the sports fan I am today, but there is a point when I think sports should honor holidays and not play on them, like football on Thanksgiving.

I also don’t want you to get the wrong idea of me thinking that playing football on Thanksgiving isn’t a tradition; I just think it should be moved to the day after on that Friday. As this tradition has grown of watching football at all levels from high school to professional football I feel like this has taken away from what Thanksgiving is truly about. Having this tradition is great for the game of football, but is playing football on Thanksgiving what our native Pilgrims who established the holiday would want to happen on Thanksgiving?

This holiday is meant for people being thankful for friends and family that you have because that’s all the Pilgrims had when they celebrated the first Thanksgiving, not to celebrate your favorite football team winning their game. With this being I said, I simply recommend football games being played on the next day which would be Friday. This would give Thanksgiving its holiday importance back and for us to be more thankful for family and friends since we would be interacting with them more since we wouldn’t have football to watch. This would also hopefully start other traditions among families since the football tradition would be moved to Friday.

In the end I know this would never happen but just thought I would put the idea of a “football less” Thanksgiving and see what reactions or comments I would get.