It’s a tradition in the United States for the President to pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving. On an old episode of the NBC drama The West Wing, Martin Sheen’s President Bartlett does just that, but not without some complications leading up to it, thanks to new Press Secretary C.J. Cregg (played by Allison Janney), who has to actually choose which turkey will get the pardon and which will be sent to the slaughter.

Our friends over at The Mary Sue uncovered a video of the scenario from the Season 2 episode (titled “Shibboleth), which you can watch here below.

Every year, Geeks of Doom adopts a turkey for Thanksgiving and this year, our sponsored turkey is Elizabeth, who was rescued from severe neglect and from becoming dinner in 2010. The shy Elizabeth lives at Farm Sanctuary’s New York shelter where she enjoys eating kiwi and melon.

In honor of Thanksgiving, regardless of what you’re having for dinner, consider sponsoring a turkey like Elizabeth or one of her friends at the NY shelter or at the California shelter. You can help provide for an animal who was lucky enough to get a second chance in life.

Writer H.P. Lovecraft died in 1937 at 46 years old, with poverty and malnutrition being contributing factors to his early death. It’s with that in mind that Ross Lockhart, the editor of The Book of Cthulhu, came up with a 24-hour Twitter challenge to help feed the hungry. This Thanksgiving, if you donate to a food bank or any charities that help feed the hungry, you can enter to win The Book of Cthulhu, an anthology collecting 17 tales of cosmic horror inspired by the writer Lovecraft.

To enter to win, make your donation, then sign on to Twitter and tweet the following message:

I fed Cthulhu [your donation] to [organization] #FeedCthulhu @lossrockhart

Here in the United States we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, and one of the traditions of the day is watching Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade happening in New York City.

A big part of the Parade are the custom balloons that make way along the route. This year, filmmaker Tim Burton created a balloon specially for the event that’s 32 feet tall and 19 feet wide.

Everyone loves to have fun on Halloween, even the animals at Disney World‘s Animal Kingdom park, who were given a special treat today in honor of the holiday: pumpkins!

Check out the video here below of the various species of wildlife being playful with their Mickey-themed pumpkin treats before chowing down on them.

Seriously, this is one of the cutest things you’ll watch today: an elephant playing soccer with its pumpkin; bats grabbing at tiny gourds, a tiger pawing at his new snack, and much more.