TV-Free Life

Welcome to Thanksgiving.

This is the day when Americans watch endless football, eat far too much, and (if you're extremely blessed they way Fred and I are) enjoy the company of precious family and friends.

I spent my first Thanksgiving holiday as a married person with my in-laws, whom I love dearly. Fred and I traveled to their home early this morning to begin our day of cooking, playing, reading, lazing, talking, piddling, and ... TV watching.

Did I mention TV watching? Because I've been living a TV-free life for just over four months, the mere presence of a muted TV bewitches me. I was enthralled  my in-laws' TV all day. Really. All day.

After many weeks of life without the box of constant news, commercials, chatter, and over-stimulation, here are a few tidbits I observed from today's variety:

1. "Miracle on 34th Street." Classic. Elegant.
2. Football--actually enjoyable. Colorful, Even entertaining. Good commercials. It helps that I heard a useful radio round-up on the games during the car ride to my in-laws, so I sort of felt as if I knew what I was getting into.
3. National Dog Show. So enjoyable to watch with my mother-in-law and her three precious pups.
4. The movie "Break Up," a funny, yet depressing relationship story with (life imitates art couple) Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.
5. NBC's People of the Year 2010. Kim Kardashian endlessly doting on her "brand" to Matt Lauer was over the top. The lovely Susan Boyle Memoriam segment made up for it.
6. The Travel Channel's latest "Man v. Food" challenge: six pounds of seven different meats and a pound-and-a-half of fries at a crowded joint in Kansas City. While entertaining, I couldn't help but think of WUNC's recent story on North Carolina's food banks and the number of food insecure households in America.

It was a lovely day, but it's time to go back to my TV-free life.

Oh, and we also don't own a microwave. But, that's for another post

What do you love about TV? What frustrates you about TV?

Top Ten Reasons You Should Stop Watching TV