If you haven’t yet fallen under the spell of Danish political thriller Borgen, here is the perfect opportunity to watch a marathon of Seasons 1 and 2 as LinkTV will air all 20 episodes of this penetrating and intelligent series over the holiday weekend, from Thursday to Sunday.  Revolving around the political, moral, and ideological struggles of Denmark’s first female prime minister, Borgen is hands down the best television show of 2012, and the women at the show’s center—Sidse Babett Knudsen’s sympathetic statsminister Birgitte Nyborg and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen’s ambitious journalist Katrine Fønsmark—deliver two of television’s strongest and most nuanced performances in a show that holds up a microscope to the political and media spheres in Denmark. The result is an unforgettable and insightful drama that will have you forgetting that you’re reading subtitles. 

Bonus tip: Don’t worry if you don’t have DirecTV or Dish or if you’re away from your television this weekend: you can watch the episodes online at LinkTV.org for two weeks after the on-air marathon.

The Thick of It (Hulu)

If you’re looking for more laughs than tears from your political television series, look no further than the caustically witty (and often brutally cringe inducing) British politics satire The Thick of It, four seasons of which—including the most recently concluded—are available on Hulu. Watch as Peter Capaldi’s foulmouthed Malcolm Tucker, the prime minister’s rabid enforcer, corrals the hapless civil servants and ministerial aides! Marvel at the insanely precise and knife-sharp tirades delivered by Capaldi! Hope that no innocent children can overhear his swearword-laden verbal floods that push the boundaries of the English language! Finally, revel in your knowledge of what the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year, “omnishambles,” truly means!

The vast network of Sandy relief organizations are working to make sure this Thanksgiving is as normal—or at least neighborly—as possible.

From Bergen County to Breezy Point to the East Village, organizations and volunteers are spreading the word through Facebook posts and flyers inviting anyone affected by Sandy to a Thanksgiving dinner.

Jennifer Kaufman, 47, of Washington Township in New Jersey, has connected more than 400 people willing to host those displaced by Sandy for a Thanksgiving dinner in their homes through her project, A Thanksgiving Table Share.

Sandy was personal for Kaufman. “My daughter moved into her house in Brick, New Jersey, in August. She had just finished painting the last room of the house when Sandy hit.” Kaufman’s daughter, Lily, evacuated ahead of the storm with her husband, but her home was damaged. “I couldn’t get to her because of the gas crisis,” Kaufman says. “I had all this nervous energy—she was my impetus for starting the Table Share.”

It’s the dance floor-ready ode to Turkey Day that you never wanted. From the auditory assailants behind Rebecca Black’s reviled viral sensation, “Friday,” comes “It’s Thanksgiving.” The song, from 12-year-old aspiring starlet Nicole Westbrook, was written and produced by “Friday” mastermind Patrice Wilson. Like “Friday,” the lyrics are embarrassingly blunt. The chorus features a roll call of all the holidays leading up to Thanksgiving followed by a musical recitation of the dinner menu—“Turkey, hey! / Mashed potatoes, hey!” By the time the turkey-leg microphone is whipped out, we’re ready to cancel dinner.

2. ‘The Thanksgiving Song’ by Adam Sandler: WIN

It’s not packed with quite as much wit as his endearingly un-P.C. ode to Hanukkah, but Adam Sandler’s homage to Thanksgiving is as close to a classic song about Turkey Day as we have. (Which, really, says a lot about the difficulty of translating the holiday to music—it’s been centuries since the Pilgrims and Indians first broke bread, and the only truly identifiable song about it was a ’90s comedy bit by a Saturday Night Live star?)

That line gave me pause and got me thinking about Trump’s “brand.”

Trump’s brand is consequence-free bullying and chicanery; mean-spirited antics designed to ride a media cycle so he can promote himself or his Macy’s product line at the expense of others. It’s not the kind of thing that you build a fashion business on top of, and it certainly isn’t consistent with my experience as a longtime Macy’s customer. And here was the CEO of Macy’s promising to further develop that brand. I felt compelled to take action. So I started a petition at SignOn.org, which is a free-to-use online organizing platform.

Then the election results came in. Trump took to Twitter and repeatedly called for the overthrow of the American government. His demands for revolt coincided with the launch of Macy’s big Christmas advertising campaign. Trump is featured in the ads playing a skeptic on Kris Kringle’s identity. Macy’s decision to portray Trump in this role raised some eyebrows given that he spent years promoting the racially charged birther conspiracy. The result was that Macy’s relationship with Trump became front and center, and the petition took off.

The petition took off because of the incompatibility between Macy’s brand and Trump’s brand of bigoted bullying.

1. Place cranberries in a small saucepan over medium-high heat and pour over these the sugar and orange juice. Stir to combine.

2. Cook until sugar is entirely melted and cranberries begin to burst in the heat, 4 to 6 minutes. Stir again, add zest, and cook for 2 or 3 minutes longer, turn off heat, cover pan, and allow to cool.

3. Put cranberry mixture in a serving bowl, cover, and place in refrigerator until cold, at least 2 hours, or until you need it.

Roasted Cauliflower with Anchovy Bread Crumbs

Still, it’s not hard to see how a rumor like this could take off. The premise of Happy Endings, which airs Tuesday nights on ABC, is simple: six close-knit friends hang out a lot. Sound familiar? The comparisons to Friends are apt—perhaps no sitcom since the NBC hit closed up Central Perk boasts a cast with as much zany chemistry as the six Happy Endings leads. 

Wilson plays Penny Hartz, the perennially single girlie girl with a clumsy streak and penchant for delivering dramatic monologues and coining catchphrases. (Penny’s theatrical pronunciation of “Amahzing” and optimistic trumpeting of the “Year of Penny,” in particular, subconsciously make their way into viewers’ daily conversation.) Penny is so unlucky in love that, in one episode, she painstakingly transforms a cute, but unstylish, duckling into a well-manicured dateable swan. She does such a good job that when the guy’s ex-girlfriend bumps into him, she’s so impressed that they reunite and get engaged. An example of her hilarious histrionics: While crying over a cosmo, she complains, “My disgustingly fat manicurist is literally trying to kill me.” 

A little bit Carrie Bradshaw with a sprinkle of Lucy Ricardo, Wilson’s endearingly daffy performance as Penny quickly earned her fan-favorite status. For the 32-year-old actress and writer, the critical accolades are a touch redemptive. Prior to booking Happy Endings, Wilson spent two seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, but was let go from the show in 2009. Rumors swirled that she was fired for being overweight. “The issue isn’t that I’m too fat, it’s that I’m too phat. Can I get a WHAT-WHAT!” she said at the time.

That winter, the romantic comedy Bride Wars, the screenplay of which Wilson co-wrote, was slammed by critics. Ever since its truncated first season was launched as a mid-season replacement in 2011, Happy Endings has been considered a “bubble show”—a series with ratings so low that it’s at a near-constant risk of cancellation. But despite less-than-stellar ratings, the show has built a passionate following and been cited as TV’s most underrated comedy by many critics. And Wilson couldn’t be having more fun acting on it.

Retail sales, both as an indicator over time and as a snapshot during holidays, provide a unique window into the strength and sentiment of the American consumer. Consumer activity accounts for about 70 percent of American activity. And consumer activity is disproportionately concentrated into the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. The holiday shopping season can make or break retailers’ years.

The forecasts, which are based on a combination of survey data measuring consumers shopping plans, past retail sales, and economic indicators, provide a glimpse into what’s motivating the American consumer. The National Retail Federation’s forecast paints a picture of shoppers encouraged by broadly positive economic conditions but unsettled by politics.

One broad economic trend that’s driving the NRF’s optimistic forecast is housing. Kathy Grannis, the director of media relations for the NRF, said in an interview with The Daily Beast “If you’re under water, you’re not buying discretionary products like electronics and apparel.” And since home values are climbing steadily, that translates pretty easily into higher sales.

This works through two related channels: the first is the “wealth effect”—the empirical positive relationship between the value of an individual’s assets, which in the case of most Americans is their home, and their consumption spending. The second is what Carl Steidtmann, chief economist at Deloitte, calls “the wealth effect becoming real”: refinancing that allows homeowners to reduce their mortgage payments, which translates directly into higher cash flow for consumers. With refinancing activity booming, the optimistic sales forecasts make more sense.

“A month before Thanksgiving, I thought, ‘You know, there’s no Thanksgiving song out there!’” Wilson tells The Daily Beast. “And my team mentioned the Adam Sandler ‘Turkey Song,’ but we wanted a big anthem.”

The music video for “It’s Thanksgiving” opens at a house party with JoJo doppelganger Westbrook singing its infectious chorus: “Oh-Oh-Oh … It’s Thanksgiving. We-We-We are gonna have a good time. With the turkey—HEY!—mashed potatoes—HEY!—It’s Thanksgiving.” Later, she raps a few bars before engaging in a slew of sight gags, including singing into a turkey leg, getting served ribs, and Wilson randomly popping up in a turkey costume.

“It’s all about having good, clean fun,” says Wilson, with a chuckle. “There’s no ribs on Thanksgiving but I had ribs in the song, so it was a fun little twist. The turkey outfit was a last-minute decision suggested by someone on my team, so we ran out and rented it the day of the shoot. And one of my directors, Chris, suggested Nicole hold the turkey leg like a microphone.”

“This is my first time singing into a turkey leg,” adds Westbrook. “I’d never seen anyone do it, but I guess it’s just like singing into your hairbrush … but with a turkey leg.”

You mention that in the book—the tandoori turkey.

I was amazed they were able to get the turkey … [I told] them to think of it as a big chicken. That’s really all it is from a cooking point of view. And so having done this for a couple of years, it occurred to me that it might be helpful to have a kind of Hoyle’s book of rules—not for card games but for the holiday itself. And so I thought if maybe I could lay down some very basic rules and recipes for Thanksgiving, it would allow anyone—whether new to the country or familiar with the holiday—to create a meal that, in my mind, would be correct [and] would live up to the ideals of Thanksgiving … set down in our collective imagination by that Norman Rockwell painting Freedom From Want.

There should be a big, beautiful burnished golden bird and there should be copious numbers of side dishes and the table should be set and that the children should be spit-shined and polite. And it against that image that so many of us come up short and worry. And the overwhelming message that I took from my time on the helpline was that people worry about this holiday. And I wanted to alleviate some of the stress that accompanies the making of this feast.

We do worry about it—and it’s silly, because we do it every year. And yet we still worry.