If you’re trying to remember when was Thanksgiving 2007, you probably have a specific reason. Maybe you’re settling a bet. Or perhaps you’re looking through old digital photos—the grainy ones from a 2-megapixel camera—and trying to figure out if that turkey dinner happened on the 22nd or the 29th.
In 2007, Thanksgiving fell on Thursday, November 22.
It was an "early" Thanksgiving. Since the holiday is always the fourth Thursday of the month, the date can swing anywhere from November 22 to November 28. Getting it on the 22nd means the holiday season kicks off as early as humanly possible, giving everyone a massive runway toward December.
The 2007 Holiday Calendar Dynamics
Honestly, having Thanksgiving on November 22 changes the entire "vibe" of the year. You get a full five weeks between the turkey and Christmas. That year, the calendar gave people a lot of breathing room.
I remember the weather being particularly weird across the U.S. that week. While the West Coast was fairly mild, a massive storm system was brewing in the midsection of the country. According to the National Weather Service archives, a significant winter storm actually hampered travel for millions in the days leading up to the 22nd.
If you were flying out of O'Hare or Denver back then, you likely remember the delays. This wasn't the era of easy smartphone updates. You were basically staring at those clunky flickering monitors in the terminal, hoping your flight wasn't the next one to go "Cancelled" in red letters.
Why the 22nd Feels So Early
The math is simple but it messes with your head.
November 1, 2007, was a Thursday.
November 8 was the second Thursday.
November 15 was the third.
And November 22 was the fourth.
Because the month started on a Thursday, the holiday hit the earliest possible calendar slot. If November 1st had been a Friday, we would have been waiting until the 28th to eat. That six-day swing dictates everything from retail profits to how much PTO people take at the end of the year.
What the World Looked Like on November 22, 2007
It’s wild to think about how different the world was when we sat down for dinner that year. George W. Bush was in the White House. He did the traditional turkey pardon, of course. That year, the lucky birds were named "May" and "Flower." They were sent off to Disneyland to serve as honorary grand marshals of the Thanksgiving Day Parade there, which was a bit of a change from the usual farm retirement.
The top song in the country? "Apologize" by Timbaland and OneRepublic was everywhere. If you turned on a radio while mashing potatoes, that was almost certainly playing.
And the movies! If you went to the cinema on Black Friday 2007, you were likely seeing Enchanted with Amy Adams or August Rush. No Country for Old Men had just been released in theaters a few weeks prior, though that’s maybe not the "feel-good" holiday flick most families were hunting for.
The Sports Scene: A Thanksgiving Staple
You can't talk about when was Thanksgiving 2007 without mentioning the NFL.
The Detroit Lions played the Green Bay Packers. It was a classic divisional matchup, but the Packers ended up winning 37-26. Brett Favre was still under center for Green Bay back then, which feels like an eternity ago.
Later that day, the Dallas Cowboys dismantled the New York Jets 34-3. Tony Romo was the star of the show. For a lot of people, that game is the primary memory of the day—just a total blowout while everyone lapsed into a food coma on the sofa.
The "night game" tradition was still relatively new. The Indianapolis Colts played the Atlanta Falcons. The Colts won 31-13. Peyton Manning was in his prime. Seeing those three games back-to-back has become the standard now, but in 2007, the three-game slate still felt like a bit of a treat compared to the old two-game format.
The Economy and the Looming Shadow
Looking back, Thanksgiving 2007 was a bit of a "calm before the storm" moment.
The Great Recession hadn't officially been declared yet, but the cracks were showing. Gas prices were creeping up, averaging around $3.10 a gallon—which felt astronomical at the time. The housing market was starting to wobble.
However, on November 22, most people were still focused on the "must-have" gadgets of the year. The first-ever iPhone had been released earlier that summer. If you were the person at the dinner table with an iPhone in 2007, you were basically a wizard. Everyone wanted to touch the screen. It was the ultimate conversation piece.
Black Friday that year was also the era of the GPS unit. Everyone wanted a Garmin or a TomTom for their car. We weren't all using Google Maps on our phones yet because, well, most phones couldn't handle it.
A Different Kind of Digital Connection
Social media was in its awkward teenage phase. Facebook had recently opened up to everyone (not just college students), but it wasn't the behemoth it is now. Twitter (now X) was barely a year old and mostly used by tech enthusiasts in San Francisco.
Most people were still sharing Thanksgiving photos on Flickr or sending them via email attachments that were way too large for 2007 inboxes to handle. There was no Instagram. No TikTok. If you wanted to see what your cousin ate for dinner, they had to physically show you a digital camera screen or wait three days for the "Cyber Monday" upload.
Why We Remember Specific Thanksgivings
Psychologically, we tend to group memories by "anchors."
Maybe 2007 was the year you graduated. Maybe it was the year a specific family member was still at the table. Because Thanksgiving 2007 was so early (the 22nd), it often gets conflated with years where the weather was particularly cold.
When the holiday happens early, winter feels longer. You have those extra days of "holiday season" before January hits. For retail workers, 2007 was a marathon. The "Black Friday" craze was arguably at its peak intensity before online shopping really started to eat into the brick-and-mortar dominance. People were literally camping out for $200 laptops and plasma TVs—tech that would be considered e-waste by today’s standards.
Surprising Facts About November 2007
- The Writers Strike: The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike had just begun on November 5. This meant that by Thanksgiving, late-night talk shows were airing reruns. Your favorite scripted shows were starting to run out of episodes. It was a weird time for TV fans.
- The Macy’s Parade: The 81st annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade featured a new balloon: Shrek. It was a big deal for the kids.
- The Box Office: Beowulf (the motion-capture one) was actually the number one movie the weekend before Thanksgiving.
How to Calculate Future Thanksgiving Dates
If you ever need to find the date without a search engine, just find the first Thursday and add 21 days.
- Find the first Thursday of November.
- If it’s the 1st, Thanksgiving is the 22nd.
- If it’s the 7th (the latest possible start), Thanksgiving is the 28th.
It’s a rolling cycle that repeats in a predictable pattern, but the "early" years like 2007 always seem to catch people off guard. They make the month of November feel like it barely happened before the gravy is on the table.
Taking Action: Preserving Your Own History
Knowing the date of a past holiday is usually the first step in organizing a family archive. If you are currently looking through 2007 files, here is what you should actually do to make sure those memories don't vanish:
- Check the Metadata: If you have digital files from November 2007, right-click the file and look at "Properties" or "Get Info." This will confirm if the photo was actually taken on the 22nd.
- Convert Old Formats: 2007 was a transitional year for video. If you have "mini-DV" tapes or early digital files (like .AVI or .WMV), convert them to .MP4 now. Hardware to read those old formats is disappearing fast.
- Label the "Who": A lot happens in nearly two decades. Write down who was at that 2007 table. Kids who were toddlers then are now graduated from college.
Thanksgiving 2007 was a moment in time right on the edge of the digital explosion. It was the last gasp of a world without constant connectivity, but with just enough technology to make it feel "modern." Whether you remember it for the Packers game, the first iPhone, or just a really good turkey, it stands as one of the earliest possible starts to the holiday season in the modern era.
💡 You might also like: How Many Liters in a Gallon: Why Your Recipe or Gas Tank Might Be Lying to You
Next Steps for Your Search:
If you are trying to reconstruct a timeline for legal or genealogical reasons, cross-reference the November 22 date with local newspapers from that Tuesday or Wednesday. Most local libraries offer digital archives of 2007 editions where you can see the specific local events, school closures, and grocery store circulars that defined that specific week in your town. For weather-specific data to confirm a memory, the NOAA Local Climatological Data search tool allows you to plug in your zip code and see exactly how much it rained or snowed on that Thursday.