Thanksgiving dinners and football may be proud American traditions, but nowadays, they don’t figure very heavily into life at Georgetown. That wasn’t always the case. Students used to celebrate Thanksgiving Day all together on campus (forget skipping your Wednesday classes) and Georgetown University used to annually host the Washington Thanksgiving Game—the most popular football game in town.

Beginning in the 1850s, Georgetown began to throw a yearly Thanksgiving Day feast for its students, which Georgetown’s Southern students referred to disparagingly as “Yankee Christmas.” The turkey dinner, Robert Curran writes in The Bicentennial History of Georgetown University, took place after a High Mass and came “with all the trimmings, including pumpkin pie.”

By the 1880s, a concert that included performances by the Georgetown Banjo Club, Mandolin Club, and Glee Club rounded out the night.

Georgetown began to host the annual football game by the turn of the century, and at the time, it was the place to be in Washington on Thanksgiving Day. Attendance was regularly in the thousands. It was a time when college football was a brutal affair and it wasn’t uncommon for players to incur injuries that resulted in death.

That was the case for a Georgetown halfback, George Bahen, in 1894, when he was paralyzed in a game against the local Columbia Athletic Club.

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Those of you who don’t live on the East Coast may be staying at Georgetown for Thanksgiving—but that doesn’t mean you have to settle for a Chicken Madness while everyone else enjoys stuffing and pumpkin pie. Voice Leisure editor Chris Heller has put together a list of D.C. restaurants that are open for business this Turkey Day, and offering Thanksgiving meals for a range of prices.

And since Leo’s is shutting its doors Wednesday evening through Sunday, Vox has also updated its restaurant guide. All of the restaurants we reviewed this semester are closed on Thanksgiving, but this weekend, we recommend you trek out to Sticky Rice or head to Dupont for Nando’s Peri-Peri.

The Guards

2915 M St NW (between N 29th St & N 30th St), Tel: (202) 965-2350

Believe it or not, The Guards isn’t just a bar at the far end of Georgetown for ‘bros and older women. During the day, they sell food, too! For $14.50 this Thanksgiving, customers can choose from turkey, baked Virginia ham, or grilled lamb chops to celebrate the Mayflower. Horray for colonialism!

Four more places to eat after the jump!

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Vox is taking off for Thanksgiving. We’d like to give thanks for a few of this semester’s blessings:

• Professors who cancelled Wednesday classes in September, not November
• Professors who have taken advantage of the information super highway for love’s sake
  
• Pumpkin pie
• Jack DeGioia when he looks like a pumpkin
• Pat Dowd when he looks like a pumpkin
• The tantalizing possibility of a Troianometer

Happy Thanksgiving!

With Thanksgiving approaching, it’s once again time for those perky “101 Things to Be Thankful For at Georgetown” fliers on the back of bathroom stall doors around campus. This year, the Voice made the list at #13, placing us in the company of perennial heavy-hitters like the Center for Social Justice and the Tombs, while both the Hoya and the Independent were left off entirely. Rock on.

-Anna Bank, Editorial Board Chair