The fattest holiday of the year is approaching. Vanishing food, pant buttons busting off, weighing scales being broken, pads clashing together, points being scored. Stuffing isn’t just a food on Thanksgiving anymore, it’s an action. Thanksgiving is the best example, but sports have become a staple of almost all holidays.

Last year on Thanksgiving, 202 million people tuned in to watch the Thanksgiving football game. That game was the NFL’s highest viewed game during the 17 weeks of the season. The NFL has 45 of the 50 most popular shows of the entire autumn season. The Thanksgiving game is one of the top TV spots-not just sports-of fall.

With the popularity spiking for football as a sport, nothing sounds better to men than eating pounds of turkey and watching 300 pound men smash into each other.

Some may say that sports and holidays need to stay separate, but this is actually a positive for everyone involved. Families stay at home more often to catch the big game, most restaurants can close and give employees the day off, and the NFL and the other major pro sports leagues gain a ton of revenue. No one loses with sports and holidays becoming a symbiotic relationship. Win-Win-Win.

The holiday helps ensure the success of any sport or television program that is aired on that Thursday. Thanksgiving for most families is a holiday spent entirely at home. Food is being cooked from the minute the adults wake up, and family members pile in the host’s house as if they’re clowns jamming into a two foot car.

There really is nothing like it, Christmas has NBA games, New Years’ has college football bowl games, and the Fourth of July has MLB. For me, it makes the holidays even more enjoyable than they already are. I can not wait on Christmas to watch the NBA games, and on Thanksgiving, I love eating turkey and mashed potatoes while watching some football. It turns a great day into an even better day.

Thanksgiving is the best example of sports and holidays mixing, but almost all holidays have a sport that is associated with them in some way, shape, or form. It’s a crazy world we live in, but for sports fans, it’s a great one.