🦃 🙏 Top 5 Picks for Thanksgiving Weekend

Happy Thanksgiving, Capital District! Today, we’re super thankful for this online community of readers that’s growing day by day. We appreciate every one of you!

We’ve got an abbreviated newsletter today as we’re getting ready to pop our turkey in the oven. Here’s how we’re doing our big bird this year—the Maple-Butter-Glazed Turkey from Bon Appetit. The color is stunning, the flavor is unmatched, and the cooking time is much faster.

Btw, The 518 Tip Jar is open in case you’re feeling extra generous on this day of gratitude 🙏 

—Phat X. Chiem & Karley Sullivan

🌤️ WEATHER WATCH

⭐️ = 518 Staff Picks

⭐️ The Troy Turkey Trot is the Capital Region’s only Thanksgiving Day 10K race. Expect up to 7,000 runners converging downtown—many in costume! Btw, Saratoga and Bethlehem have their own turkey trots on Thanksgiving. The TU has a full list of turkey day races.

⭐️ Avoid the Black Friday madness and hit up MopCo’s famous annual celebration of gluttony, family values, greed and mindless consumerism. Friday, 8p. Get tix here.

⭐️ This Saturday is Small Business Saturday, so get out and support your local businesses. Merchants everywhere will be putting on special sales and events, including Holiday Craft Marketplace in Saratoga, discounts in downtown Troy, Capital Region Christkindlmarket in Colonie, and the craft’s fair at Samascott’s Garden Market in Kinderhook.

⭐️ Didn’t make it out to the Eras Tour? On Sunday, The Egg is bringing Fearless: The Taylor Swift Experience to the stage—it’s touted as the most authentic recreation of a TS show you’ve ever seen.

⭐️ Also on Sunday, get to Lark Hall for the cleverly named Hung with Care: A Queer Holiday Burlesque Extravaganza! The 12th annual tour brings together some of the country’s best performers in cabaret, burlesque, drag and circus arts.

🍗 Don’t feel like cooking or making a mess for Thanksgiving? Dine-in or take out at these fine establishments.

🥣 Upstate's Cold Brew delights your inner 12-year-old with Saturday Morning Cartoons, featuring a cold cereal bar, unlimited coffee and classic cartoons, of course!

🕯️ Looking for that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling—without getting out of the car? Get to Holiday Lighted Nights at the Washington Co. Fairgrounds or the Magic of Lights at the Altamont Fairgrounds. The popular Santa’s Magical Express in Rensselaer opens this weekend, but shows are booking up fast!

The TU has the full list of holiday light shows.

🎅 Christmas Land returns to Altamont for its 9th season starting this weekend (runs through Dec. 21-22). It’s all about nostalgia with train rides, visits with Santa, sleigh rides, and light displays.

🎄Wanna make like Clark Griswold and attempt to cut down your own Christmas tree? Here’s a list of cut-your-own-tree farms in and around the Capital Region. Speaking of, there are still plenty of tickets left to see Chevy Chase live in conversation, after a 35th anniversary showing of “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

🎸 LIVE MUSIC & MORE

💌 WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU

Got a cool event, personality or place we absolutely need to cover? Or have something to say about the newsletter? Drop us a line at [email protected]!