Apparently America Is Very Thankful for Movies—Especially When They Star Jennifer Lawrence

In the olden days, the only thing people did on the long Thanksgiving weekend was stuff their faces with turkey, watch football, and get into fist fights over $14.95 toaster ovens at Wal-Mart. These days, however, we have expanded our repertoire of holiday activities to include sitting next to family members in a dark room in complete silence.

Obviously, I'm talking about going to the movies. People have finally realized the break they provide from having to make conversation with visiting relatives, so now they're going to them in droves.

Case in point: Catching Fire. Though the movie came out last weekend, this extended weekend it's going to earn about $100 million—$14.9 million on Thursday alone—shattering the Thanksgiving weekend box office record of $83.4 million set by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

And it's not just Jennifer Lawrence that has people flocking to cineplexes, either. Disney's animated Frozen opened on Wednesday night, and if not for Catching Fire it would own the Thanksgiving weekend record itself. It raked in $11.1 million on Thursday and is on track for about $90 million from Wednesday-Sunday.

So yeah, two separate movies broke the Thanksgiving box office record this year. I guess you could say we're gobbling up anything Hollywood serves us. (Rim shot.)