Certainly there is reason to give thanks. It seems like every year, I’m left searching for some sort of motivation to find something to be thankful for. Searching the depths of my personal life, I normally come up empty handed. It seems that aspect of my life is as absent of fulfillment as a small bowl of Cheerios.

Sports are generally a quick fix. Frankly, if it weren’t for those two wonderfully scheduled football games on Thursday, I don’t think I could make it through the day without the frustrations of family bringing me down.

Sure, the food is good and all; and I do genuinely like my family, but there’s only so much of the last couple months that I want to divulge to my parents.

Maybe I should just prepare a list for them? Print has always proved the best way of expression. I think it would get the necessary information across, but they may find a list as disrespectful as this column.

So this is where football enters my holiday game plan. The Thanksgiving Day games allow me a chance to form lively and constructive conversations around a sport I can use to bond with my parents. Well, maybe bond with my father mostly, but my mom does really enjoy the game. She did score Redskins season tickets, although a year after I moved a thousand miles away. But she does let me have the tickets late in the season when it gets too chilly. (She’s from Virginia and the pain thresholds when dealing with the cold are a little smaller down there than up here.)

But honestly, who wants to discuss with your parents how classes are going when there’s an open invitation to talk about football? Being from the D.C. area, Thanksgiving is less about thanks and more about the instilling of ill will toward the Dallas Cowboys. And it seems in recent years the people of Wisconsin have been treated with a dose of the Packers on Turkey Day. So in this, at least most of my friends and family can find something to be thankful for. I mean, Brett Favre on Thanksgiving is as good as a second scoop of ice cream on a Cheesehead’s pumpkin pie.

But, in looking back on it, football can sometimes bring up feelings and memories that one (mainly myself) would rather not have to deal with on Thanksgiving. In my house, it seems the football gene doesn’t run so strongly on the male side of the family. My father and I didn’t play in high school, so we don’t strike up a chorus of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” when visions of the gridiron dance across the screen. My sister, however, made her way to the varsity squad as kicker her senior year, so conversations of the game can sometimes take a direct hit on my already fragile masculinity. I mean, there’s only so much shame I can afford.

But I digress. I amended my absence from pads for the West Potomac Wolverines by becoming their P.A. announcer. And while it didn’t yield me any grand memories of laying a big hit on the Mt. Vernon Majors’ quarterback, I did get a varsity letter. Be it a cheap way to earn it.

But I’ve inherited a love the game from my parents. One of my earliest memories is watching Bo Jackson race out to a big game in his Raiders uniform on the old Zenith box in the living room while my dad and I cheered him on. I remember going to a Redskins playoff game against the Lions with my whole family and bearing the January cold and cheering the ‘Skins on to victory.

So football is reason to give thanks. It brings us together when we’re so far apart. Memories of sitting next to my family after that big meal, watching John Madden circle the legs on his mutant turkey, always bring a smile to my face.

While I will miss my third straight Thanksgiving with my family, I will be sure to think of them when the Dolphins stick it to the Tuna and the Cowboys on Thursday afternoon.