Thanksgiving on One Screen: The Parade, Three NFL Games and the Dog Show on a Mac

Thanksgiving 2026 runs from Wednesday night to Black Friday afternoon. The Macy's parade is on NBC and Peacock, the National Dog Show follows at noon, and three NFL games land on Thursday. One Mac can hold all of it if you give each part of the day its own saved window.

Thanksgiving on one Mac: the short answer

Every family has the same argument. Someone wants the parade, someone wants football, and someone needs the oven timer to be louder than both. A Mac connected to the TV can end it. Put the parade and the dog show side by side in the morning, the early game and the kitchen playlist in the afternoon, and the night game by itself after dinner.

The tool we use for this is Plush, a native Mac app that puts up to three tiles in one window for free, eight with Plush Pro, and decides which one you hear. Below is the full week, a plan for each part of the day, and the limits you should know about before Thursday. Schedules are as published in September 2026, so confirm times with your local listings the week of.

Thanksgiving week 2026 viewing schedule

The NFL has added a game on Wednesday night for the first time, which makes it a five-game celebration across three days, according to Wikipedia's 2026 season page. The matchups and times below match CBS Sports' Thanksgiving schedule.

We could not confirm exact rivalry-game dates and kickoffs for Ohio State and Michigan, Alabama and Auburn, or the Egg Bowl as we wrote this. Those games usually land on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, but kickoff times are set later in the fall, so check your local listings.

The audience is big enough that the planning is worth it. All three 2025 Thanksgiving games set records, and the three-game average was 44.7 million viewers, the highest Thanksgiving Day average on record dating back to 1988. The same page lists 57.2 million for the Chiefs and Cowboys game on CBS and Paramount+, the most-watched regular season game on record. And Wikipedia's parade entry says that in 2024 the parade was the most-watched US television special of the year.

Morning: the parade and the dog show side by side

The parade runs on NBC and streams on Peacock, and the National Dog Show follows on NBC. Its 2024 telecast drew 12 million viewers, fifth among network television specials. Kids want the floats. Somebody's uncle wants the Labrador. Both are fine, and neither needs a second TV.

1. Add two Website tiles. Click an empty tile, choose Website, and pick Peacock from the cards for the parade. Peacock is on Plush's built-in list. For the dog show, load NBC's site as a custom site, since NBC's own address isn't on the built-in list.
2. Lock the sound to the room's favorite. Double-click the tile you want to hear. It gets an accent-colored glow, and Focus mode plays only that tile.
3. Let the other one murmur. Open the sidebar with ⌘\ and switch Sound to Adaptive (Plush Pro). The focused tile plays at full volume and the other sits at 15 percent by default.
4. Move the sound when the mood changes. Double-click the other tile and the glow, and the audio, follow.

Two tiles split the window evenly, which suits a parade that is mostly marching bands and a dog show that is mostly dignified trotting.

Afternoon: two games, a cooking playlist and the kitchen

The Bears and Lions kick off at 1 p.m. ET, and the Eagles and Cowboys at 4:30. A game lasts about three hours, so they barely touch, but the second game's pregame show starts early, and a hungry house wanders in and out. Here is the afternoon layout.

1. Switch to Hero layout (Plush Pro). In the sidebar, choose Hero. The tile with the audio lock becomes the big one at 65 percent of the window. Put the Bears and Lions there. Paramount+ is on the built-in list, so it loads without extra setup.
2. Park the second game small. Load the Eagles and Cowboys on FOX in a smaller tile. FOX is a custom site, so add it once from the tile's custom site option. When the early game ends, double-click the small tile to move the sound, and drag the seam between the tiles to give it more room.
3. Add the cooking playlist. An Apple Music tile can carry a Thanksgiving playlist from your library. If you would rather skip a subscription, point a folder tile (Plush Pro) at a local folder of MP3 files and it plays like a jukebox. Either way, only one music tile plays at a time.
4. Add the family photos. With Plush Pro, choose Local Files, then Folder, and pick a folder of scans from Thanksgivings past. It becomes a slideshow. Set the dwell time to 15 or 30 seconds with the timer button, keep Crossfade, and the gentle Ken Burns drift is on by default. Nobody has to hold the remote to see the 1994 sweater.
5. Pin the game over the recipe. Press ⇧⌘P for Pin on Top. Shrink the window into a corner and it floats above the recipe you have open. It resets on quit, so it is one press each time.
6. Mute for grace. Press M for master mute. It silences the game tiles and pauses Apple Music, and unmuting brings back what was playing.

Night: the late game, by itself

The Chiefs and Bills kick off at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC. By then the kitchen is closed and you want one big picture. Load the game in a single tile and press ⌃⌘F for full screen and put the cooking playlist away. If someone is still on the pie, drop the music tile back in and shrink the game to the hero slot.

Black Friday and the weekend

The Broncos at the Steelers are on Friday at 3 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video. Prime Video's address is not on Plush's built-in list, so add it once through the custom site option. Sign in, and the login carries across tiles on that site. Saturday is rivalry day, and once those kickoffs are posted you can stack two or three in a Hero layout the same way. For more football setups, see our six multiview layouts for football, basketball and hockey.

For which services run multiview in a Mac browser and which don't, see our service-by-service matrix. The short version is that Peacock does, and most of the others live on TV boxes.

Save three sessions: Morning, Afternoon and Night

Saved sessions are part of Plush Pro. On the free version, Restore Last Session brings back your most recent layout.

Setting this up on Thursday morning with a turkey half-thawed is the wrong time. Do it Wednesday.

1. Build the Morning layout. Set up the parade and dog show tiles, sign in to each service, and choose Adaptive sound (Plush Pro).
2. Save it. Open Sessions in the sidebar, choose Save Current Session, and name it Morning.
3. Repeat for Afternoon and Night. Rebuild the layout, then save each under its own name.

A session stores the tile count, layout, sound mode, ambient level, each tile's address and volume, and the folder settings. It does not store playback positions, and a fresh launch always starts empty. Load the session you want from the sidebar and the lineup rebuilds in one step. If a photo folder has moved, Plush warns you that some files are missing.

Honest limits

• Paid services. A tile loads the site the way Safari does, the service decides what plays, and account stream limits still apply. Two games on one subscription count as two streams.
• Broadcast networks. CBS, FOX and NBC need their own apps or sites and a sign-in with a TV provider. Those sites may have to be added as custom sites, because the built-in list covers streaming services such as Peacock, Netflix, Paramount+ and YouTube.
• Prime Video. Add it through the custom site option, as above.
• Apple Music. It needs a subscription, and a music tile has no per-tile volume.
• Fresh launches. Plush starts empty each time, so load your saved session after opening it.

Test everything on Wednesday, ideally during the Netflix game, so any sign-in surprise happens before the parade does.

Putting it on the TV

Connect the Mac to the TV with an HDMI cable, or use the TV as an external display, then drag the Plush window onto it and press ⌃⌘F for full screen. Keep the laptop on the counter and the controls are one keystroke away from the kitchen: M to mute, ⌘\ for the sidebar.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on, and can I stream it?

NBC is the official broadcaster of the parade, and it also streams on Peacock. Start times have been 8:30 a.m. in recent years, but check your local listings for 2026. On a Mac, open Peacock in a browser or a Plush tile.

How do I watch all three Thanksgiving NFL games?

The Bears and Lions are at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and Paramount+, the Eagles and Cowboys at 4:30 on FOX, and the Chiefs and Bills at 8:20 on NBC. Streaming needs a provider sign-in or the matching service. A Mac can run each in a tile, within your account's stream limits.

How do I watch the Black Friday NFL game?

The Broncos and Steelers kick off Friday, November 27 at 3 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video. You need Prime. In Plush, add Prime Video as a custom site and sign in once.

Can I watch the parade and football at the same time?

Yes. Load each into its own tile and use Focus mode so only one plays sound, or Adaptive (Plush Pro) to keep the other at 15 percent. Football doesn't start until 1 p.m. ET anyway, so the overlap is mostly the dog show and pregame.

Can I watch on a Mac without cable?

Mostly yes. Peacock, Netflix, Paramount+ and Prime Video all run in a browser, and CBS, FOX and NBC offer their own sites and apps. Some require a TV provider sign-in for live games, and a few need a paid plan, so check each one before Thursday.

Plush Media Player is free on the Mac App Store, and Plush Pro is a one-time $2.99 with no subscription and no account. Build your Morning, Afternoon and Night sessions this week and Thanksgiving gets a lot quieter.