Jays are the bird of choice for many this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner is looking a bit different for one Vancouver couple this year. The normally well-stocked table, with Turkey and all the fixings, will be replaced with a takeaway turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce, and the usual dinner table conversation replaced with a much-awaited Blue Jays baseball game, said Helen Vlahos.

Vlahos was visiting Toronto with her partner, Wolf Schneider, for a family event this weekend.

"This is more important than having a big, full-blown turkey dinner," Vlahos said.

The Blue Jays are slated to play Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday against the Seattle Mariners. It's the first time they've made it this far since 2016. Game two is scheduled for Monday.

The games coincide with Thanksgiving this year -- a reason enough for many fans to move their dinner from the dining table to in front of their TVs.

Vlahos and Schneider said they're expecting to arrive in Vancouver just in time to get home Sunday and get settled on their couch for the game. While their holiday plans this year were to keep things light, Schneider said the day wouldn't have looked any different if they had planned a big celebration alongside the game.

"If we were going to be having Thanksgiving dinner chances are we'd still be together (and) we'd be watching the game while having dinner," he said. "Or the Thanksgiving Day might have moved to a different day."

Before returning home, the couple managed to squeeze in an early-morning visit to the Blue Jays' official merchandise store in downtown Toronto on Saturday, and finally picked their Schneider jerseys.

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"We had made kind of a little bet that if the Jays could