This is the time of year
when Americans would normally be fighting
over whether to get the canned cranberry sauce
or the good canned cranberry sauce.
But in corona,
the big question is whether to have Thanksgiving at all.
♪ ♪
NEWSWOMAN: There's no place like home for the holidays
and that indulgent Thanksgiving feast
with friends and family.
But coast-to-coast, cases of the coronavirus
are on the rise, and travel plans are changing.
In a recent survey, 47% of Americans
say they're going to cancel.
There is growing concern
the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday
could turn into a super-spreader event.
NEWSWOMAN 2: New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio
just announcing that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
will go virtual this year.
NEWSMAN: Some experts are calling
the hundreds of thousands of college students
traveling across the country for the holidays
"little ticking time bombs."
Oh, yeah. This is the perfect holiday week for corona.
Young people come home from colleges,
party together indoors in their hometown
and then hang out with their oldest relatives?
You best believe corona's already lining up right now
like it's a Black Friday sale on grandparents.
And let's be honest. Corona would just be
one more shitty thing that kids bring home from college.
Because college kids only bring stuff home that nobody wants.
Piles of dirty laundry, shitty taste in beer,
their new boyfriend who starts every sentence with,
"Well, according to Nietzsche..."
Shut up and pass the mashed potatoes, Beckett.
Honestly, I think
they should just cancel the parade altogether.
Why would I want to watch a virtual balloon of SpongeBob
when I can just watch the actual SpongeBob?
In fact, why am I even talking to you now
when I could be watching SpongeBob?
(laughs) Squidward, you never win.
But even with the pandemic, many people
don't want to cancel Thanksgiving altogether.
And the good news, people,
is that you don't need to cancel Thanksgiving
as long as you take some simple precautions.
NEWSMAN: If you have no choice but to have dinner indoors,
be sure to open the windows.
Really let that outdoor air circulate in.
It'll get nice and cold,
but you're also getting a lot of air exchange,
and it'll really create that outdoor environment indoors.
NEWSMAN: Eat at separate tables if dining inside.
NEWSMAN 2: Of course, the safest Thanksgiving
is going to be spent virtually apart but together,
and Zoom is trying to help out with that.
They're gonna be lifting their 40-minute time limit
on free video chats,
so your Thanksgiving video calls
can go on for as long as you'd like.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Zoom is allowing unlimited calls?
Do they not realize
how much they are screwing us over?
People, that 40-minute time limit
was a get out of jail free card.
Yeah. You can thank Zoom this year
when you're on a three-hour call
with your cousin explaining his foot surgery.
"You see, Trevor, it's called a metatarsal.
"And in the foot, there are many bones.
"They're small, and they can break and fracture.
"And connected to that one
"is the meniscus through the Achilles tendon,
"which can be pulled slightly.
"And then that... But the doctor said...
The doctor said what? 'We can fix it.'"
But a lot of these suggestions are smart, all right?
Like opening the windows is a great idea.
It improves ventilation and social distancing,
because, you see, once the room is freezing
and the food is all cold,
everyone will get back in their cars and go home.
In fact, I also have an idea for a safe Thanksgiving.
Instead of playing your annual touch football game,
keep social distance by playing paintball.
Also, don't tell anyone else that you're playing paintball.
Yeah. If you're the only one with a paintball gun,
you automatically win.
Of course, a smaller guest list just means a smaller turkey,
and weird as it seems,
even that is creating a problem this year.
Health officials are really urging people to pass
on that big, traditional, large family gathering.
And that has actually led to a weird dilemma.
There's a run on small turkeys.
NEWSWOMAN: Turkeys that are ten to 14 pounds
are in high demand right now
with consumers reporting picked over freezer cases
with only 20-pound birds left behind.
That has created a shortage of smaller birds.
NEWSWOMAN 2: Since the growth time of a turkey
starts in the summer,
it's hard to control their size.
They're gonna grow at the pace they're going to grow at,
and you can't say, "Okay, guys.
Uh, we're gonna put you on a diet."
That just doesn't work.
All right, everybody! We did it!
We discovered the most American problem of all time.
You're worried that even your food is too overweight?
And yeah, that farmer is right.
You cannot put a turkey on a diet.
But what you can do is tell them
that their high school reunion is coming up.
Best believe they'll be eating salad
with dressing on the side for a month.
Also, how would a turkey diet even work?
"Okay, guys, listen up.
"This is called a juice cleanse.
"Right, for a week, you're all gonna be drinking
"lemon juice with, like, cayenne pepper and...
"You know what? This seems more normal on Instagram.
"Now that I'm saying it to you in real life,
-it feels strange." -(turkeys gobble)
But listen here, America.
Everybody has to eat the big turkeys.
Please. Because if we don't eat the big turkeys this year,
that means they're only gonna get bigger next year.
Then by the next year,
we'll be wrestling the turkey over who goes in the oven.
(gobbling)
(screams)
And finally, there's one more way that corona
is making Thanksgiving more difficult than usual.
If the whole family isn't gathering
at Grandma's house this year, that means
they can't just make Grandma do all the cooking.
NEWSWOMAN: With more people staying home for Thanksgiving,
more Americans will be cooking at home for the first time,
and some of them are stressed.
A new survey by Campbell's
shows that one in five home cooks
are gonna be first-time Thanksgiving hosts
and two-thirds of Americans are dreading
the possibility of an epic cooking fail.
NEWSWOMAN 2: And with more amateur cooks
hitting the kitchen this year,
one firefighter says
it could be a recipe for disaster.
It's easy to see how they get distracted.
They walk away from a stovetop, they walk away from an oven,
and the next thing you know is we have a disaster.
NEWSWOMAN 3: If culinary arts isn't your calling,
then cooking a Thanksgiving turkey can be tricky.
That's why Whole Foods has teamed up
with Progressive Insurance to provide
their first ever Thanksgiving Turkey Protection Plan.
If you have a turkey cooking fail,
Whole Foods is offering a $35 gift card
as insurance.
NEWSWOMAN 4: All customers will need a receipt,
a picture of the failed turkey
and an explanation of what went wrong.
So, Whole Foods actually wants a picture
of a failed turkey?
My only question is will they accept one
of the president of the United States?
(air horn blaring)
But for real, though, man,
you could not have a better embodiment
of the problems facing America than right here.
Right? On a day when people gather
during a deadly pandemic to binge eat,
it's the turkey that has a solid insurance plan.
This is why I play it safe
and microwave my turkey.
Yeah. It's quick, it's easy,
and you can use all that extra time that you save
to deal with the salmonella that you contract.
But it looks like corona or not, America's gonna find some way
to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.
But please, no matter how you do it,
just try and be as safe as you can,
because this pandemic is no joke.
And the most important thing about Thanksgiving
is making sure that you're around for the next one.