Nobody wakes up during Thanksgiving week thinking, “I have to run to go buy a turkey” because it’s always been there.

For more than four decades I’ve covered the Thanksgiving turkey wars, and every November it’s the same fight: who’s got the cheapest bird, who can print the lowest per-pound price in the circular, who’ll give one away if you spend enough on everything else. Thanksgiving 2026 is shaping up differently.

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