It’s almost Thanksgiving again, so we hope you’re prepared for a full day of eating food and otherwise sitting around doing very little with friends and/or family. To aid you in that endeavor, below you’ll find the lowdown on all the most important television programming on Thanksgiving day, from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to football to everything else. So let’s take a look.
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – The extremely popular New York City parade will be shown live on both CBS and NBC starting at 9 a.m. — if you live in any part of the United States that isn’t the West Coast, anyway. If you are on the West Coast, NBC will broadcast the parade on delay at 9 a.m. PT. CBS will not show the parade at all on the West Coast, because the net will be showing football starting at 9:30 a.m. PT. Speaking of which…
Football! There are three NFL games on Thanksgiving day, one on each of the broadcast networks that carry the NFL. The action kicks off on CBS at 12:30 p.m. ET/9:30 a.m. PT with the Chicago Bears playing at the Detroit Lions’ stadium. Then we head over to Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET/1:30 p.m. PT for Redskins vs Cowboys in Dallas. Finally, the day ends on NBC at 8:20 p.m. ET/5:20 p.m. PT with the Atlanta Falcons at the New Orleans Saints.
Meanwhile, there are a pair of college games on Thanksgiving as well. First, on the CBS Sports Network, Colorado State faces off against Air Force at 3:30 p.m. ET/12:30 p.m. PT. And at night on ESPN you can catch the Egg Bowl between Mississippi State and Ole Miss at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT.
“Murphy Brown” Thanksgiving special – At 9:30 p.m. on CBS you can catch a new episode of “Murphy Brown,” in which Murphy herself (Candice Bergen) will cook Thanksgiving dinner for all of her co-workers. This will probably not go well, because Murphy Brown is not known for her cooking prowess and this is a sitcom.
Hallmark Channel and Lifetime Christmas Marathons – If you’re in the mood for some Christmas movies, Hallmark and Lifetime have you covered. Each channel will spend the entire day showing their original Christmas movies, before each premieres a new one at 8 p.m. (Pictured: Hallmark’s “Christmas at Pemberley Manor,” airing at 6 p.m.)
The new Lifetime Christmas flick premiere on Thanksgiving is “The Christmas Contract” — in which a woman hires a man to be her boyfriend so she has somebody to show off to her family when she visits for the holidays. And, of course, sparks fly. This one is particularly notable for reuniting four cast members from “One Tree Hill”: Hilarie Burton, Robert Buckley, Danneel Ackles and Antwon Tanner.
The new Hallmark original Christmas movie is “Christmas at the Palace,” in which Katie, a former figure skater, is hired by the king of the fictional nation of San Senova to work with his daughter ahead of her big Christmas performance. And, of course, sparks fly between Katie and the king and things get very complicated.
“The Christmas Chronicles” on Netflix – Netflix is debuting an original Christmas movie on its own, and it’s got some star power with Kurt Russell playing the very real Santa Claus in this shenanigans-filled comedy. The flick is about a pair of siblings hoping to catch Santa in the act (of giving presents) and end up almost ruining Christmas when they sneak onto Santa’s sleigh and accidentally make it crash.
“Meghan’s New Life: The Real Princess Diaries” – At 9 p.m., ABC News will be premiering this special going behind the scenes with Meghan Markle to explore her life and the rest of the British royal family’s since Markle announced her pregnancy in in October.
“Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” marathon – Given that Thanksgiving is a food-oriented holiday, you might be in the mood for some food-themed television programming. And CNN has you covered with a twelve-hour marathon of “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” in which the late Bourdain travels the world eating food. The marathon kicks off at 4 p.m.
