Before the turkey and the pie, indulge in a little TV

Before that tryptophan-induced coma inevitably strikes you down on Thursday and the unwanted family members descend, give thanks to the time-honored Pilgrim-Indian lovefest by doing the most American of things -- watching TV.

Sure, Thanksgiving TV has become an amalgamation of badly-scheduled football games (seriously, folks, do the appalling Detroit Lions truly deserve a national spotlight for yet another year?) with a splash of the jaw-droppingly boring Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and some early Christmas specials. But there are other options to your holiday TV needs.

Start tonight with one of my perennial holiday favorites, "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving," airing tonight on ABC at 7 p.m. Even if you have nothing but hatred in your heart, you can't help but feel the holiday spirit when Charlie and Snoopy serve a pre-Thanksgiving feast of toast, jelly beans, ice cream sundaes and pretzels. There's also a short cartoon that imagines the Peanuts gang on the Mayflower.

If watching crappy football is not enough on Thursday or you need to avoid an over-sharing family member, switch over to the Godfather marathon on AMC on Thursday. Or check out the following marathons: "Newhart" on WGN, "Dirty Jobs" on Discovery and "Jon & Kate Plus 8" on TLC.

"A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" airs on ABC tonight at 7 p.m.

-- Malavika Jagannathan, mjaganna@greenbaypressgazette.com