Thanksgiving Day Schedule 2026: Parade 8:30 a.m., Lions 1 p.m. ET

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade begins at 8:30 a.m. in all time zones on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026, NBCUniversal says, and Bears at Lions kicks off at 1 p.m. ET, according to NFL.com. The National Dog Show airs from noon to 2 p.m. local time on NBC, per the American Kennel Club (AKC); NBC10 Philadelphia gives the date as Thursday, Nov. 26. That makes two kinds of events on one day: games that start at one moment everywhere, and broadcasts that start at the same clock time in every zone. Below are the day in Eastern Time (ET), the same day for a Pacific Time (PT) viewer and a dinner plan.

Thanksgiving Day 2026 hour by hour in Eastern Time

Time (ET)	Event	Where	Clock rule
8:30 a.m.	Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (100th)	NBC, Peacock, Telemundo	8:30 a.m. in every zone
8:45 a.m.	America’s Thanksgiving Parade, Detroit	WDIV Local 4	Local time
noon	National Dog Show (to 2 p.m.)	NBC, Peacock	Noon local in every zone
1 p.m.	Bears at Lions	CBS, Paramount+, NFL+	Same moment everywhere
2 p.m.	Macy’s parade encore	NBC	2 p.m. ET/PT
4:30 p.m.	Eagles at Cowboys	FOX, FOX One, NFL+	Same moment everywhere
8 p.m.	Texas Christian University (TCU) at Texas Tech	ESPN	Same moment everywhere
8:20 p.m.	Chiefs at Bills	NBC, Peacock, NFL+	Same moment everywhere

Sources: NBCUniversal (parade, Nov. 13, 2026), the AKC (dog show, Nov. 10, 2026), NFL.com (NFL games) and The Parade Company (Detroit). FOX34 reported TCU at Texas Tech at 7 p.m. local time in Lubbock, which is Central Time; the 8 p.m. ET entry is our conversion. NBCUniversal also says the parade airs live on Telemundo and lists an encore on NBC at 2 p.m. ET/PT. It does not list when the live broadcast ends.

Which Thanksgiving events air at the same clock time everywhere?

Two groups behave differently. The parade and the dog show are tied to local clocks: NBCUniversal says NBC and Peacock “kick off the holiday season at 8:30 a.m. in all time zones”, and the AKC says NBC airs the dog show “from noon to 2 p.m. local time”. The NFL games are tied to one moment, so their clock time shifts by zone.

That gap changes the order of the day. In Eastern Time the Lions kick off 1 hour after the dog show starts, so the two overlap. In Central Time both start at noon. In Mountain Time the Lions start at 11 a.m., an hour before the dog show, and in Pacific Time at 10 a.m., 2 hours before it. The dog show is on NBC and the Lions game is on CBS, so the two overlap on different networks.

Thanksgiving Day 2026 for a Pacific Time viewer

Time (PT)	Event	Same moment as (ET)
8:30 a.m.	Macy’s parade begins (NBC)	8:30 a.m. on local clocks
10 a.m.	Bears at Lions (CBS)	1 p.m.
noon	National Dog Show starts (NBC)	noon on local clocks
1:30 p.m.	Eagles at Cowboys (FOX)	4:30 p.m.
2 p.m.	Parade encore and dog show ends	2 p.m. on local clocks
5 p.m.	TCU at Texas Tech (ESPN)	8 p.m.
5:20 p.m.	Chiefs at Bills (NBC)	8:20 p.m.

The conversions are ours: Pacific Time is 3 hours behind Eastern. A Pacific viewer waits 1 hour 30 minutes between the parade start and the first kickoff. An Eastern viewer waits 4 hours 30 minutes.

Thanksgiving NFL kickoff times in Central and Mountain Time

Game	ET	CT	MT	PT
Bears at Lions	1 p.m.	noon	11 a.m.	10 a.m.
Eagles at Cowboys	4:30 p.m.	3:30 p.m.	2:30 p.m.	1:30 p.m.
Chiefs at Bills	8:20 p.m.	7:20 p.m.	6:20 p.m.	5:20 p.m.

NFL.com lists the times in ET; the other columns are our conversion. The NFL’s Week 12 schedule page lists the same three games on Thursday, Nov. 26, at 1 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 8:20 p.m. The Lions’ halftime show is headlined by Wu-Tang Clan, the Detroit Lions say, and Miranda Lambert performs at the Cowboys’ halftime show, the Dallas Cowboys say. The Chiefs-Bills halftime act is not announced. The league also plays Packers at Rams on Wednesday, Nov. 25 at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix, and Broncos at Steelers on Friday, Nov. 27 at 3 p.m. ET on Prime Video. Our Thanksgiving football schedule story adds the college games.

Local parades on the morning of Nov. 26

These times are local to each city, so each is the same clock time as a viewer there sees. Our Thanksgiving parades by city story has routes and channels.

City	Local start	Zone	Broadcast named by the organizer
Chicago	7:45 a.m.	CT	CBS Chicago
Philadelphia	8:30 a.m., after a 30-minute pre-show	ET	6abc
Detroit	8:45 a.m.	ET	WDIV Local 4, clickondetroit.com
Houston	9 a.m.	CT	None named

Sources: Choose Chicago, Visit Philadelphia (updated Nov. 13, 2026), The Parade Company and the City of Houston. Chicago’s 7:45 a.m. step-off is 45 minutes before NBC’s 8:30 a.m. start in Central Time.

Where does dinner fit between the games?

Kickoffs are 3 hours 30 minutes apart, from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET, then 3 hours 50 minutes apart, to 8:20 p.m. ET. The same gaps hold in every zone, by our subtraction. The sources list no game length, so the time from one game’s end to the next kickoff is not computed here.

Our advice: pick the dinner time first, then see which kickoff it lands near. A dinner at the Lions kickoff in Pacific Time is at 10 a.m., while the same plan in Eastern Time is at 1 p.m. The printable has a dinner column for your own times. Turkey timing is in the Thanksgiving 2026 planner.

Thanksgiving Day planner to print

The free one-page sheet lists the parade, dog show and games with ET, CT, MT and PT columns, the channels, a column to mark what you will watch and a dinner column. Mark the day on the November 2026 printable calendar, and see when Thanksgiving falls in other years. Channel details are in our Thanksgiving 2026 TV schedule, the parade route in our Macy’s parade guide and the dog show in our National Dog Show guide. Morning runs are in turkey trot start times by city.