Last year, I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time. While the event did include more than three dozen people, I was prepared to host it again this year.

But another family member offered to have everyone over for the holiday next week. While they may be using some far-fetched claim such as wanting to introduce their son's fiancé, I suspect other motives: My family's lack of football games on the television, a day-long staple during our Thanksgiving gatherings.

Although our family members do venture outside throughout the day for a game of touch football or to go for a walk, Thanksgiving just wasn't the same without a football game emanating from the TV screen throughout the day.

I don't have very good television reception at my house, much less cable TV. If the clouds are positioned just right and no one moves the twice-broken antennae from its perfect spot, I can sometimes get in the public station and one network station. We use the TV primarily to watch our DVD collection, which provides more than enough time in front of the tube.

And even these slim pickings of stations will be coming to an end in the near future.

According to an Associated Press story, the government has set April 7, 2009, as the firm date for television broadcasters to end their traditional analog transmissions and send their broadcasts via digital signals.

In case you are curious where this date came from, it wasn't just picked out of a hat. Organizers of the bill to didn't want to create chaos by switching in the middle of something vital, like March Madness, the college bowl games or holiday programming, so they picked April 7. Absolutely nothing must be on during that day.

Since I'm not a huge fan of technology as it is, I'm not sure if this switch is a good idea. If you are like me -- with an old-hand-me-down set -- which relies on free, over-the-air television, we'll need a converter box to keep that TV useful.

Proponents of the change claim that digital television provides sharper pictures and better sound than analog TV. Anyone who subscribes to cable and satellite systems won't be affected.

But the government is coming to our rescue, offering to keep us in front of our television sets. With an estimated 21 million people likely to be affected by the switch to digital, the government is offering to buy these converter boxes for us. Their reasoning is that they are mandating the change and can't leave people behind, that is without television access, just because they can't afford new sets.

The cost? With converter boxes running about $50 a piece and the government covering $40 of that cost, the program could run a couple billion bucks if every TV in a household is covered.

If this goes through many people won't be able to pay their heating bills, but at least they'll have television.

The reason this program is sailing through the Congress and the Senate is because technically the program will finance itself. More than $10 billion could be raised from an auction of the analog spectrum the broadcasters will be leaving behind. But instead of using the money to provide basic needs such as heat and food and shelter, people would instead have TV.

The only positive aspect of this program would be the allocation of the freed-up radio spectrum to fire and police departments to improve radio communications.

Without converter boxes provided by the government, some people could end up without access to television unless they pay for it. But with the some of the programming being offered today, is that really all that bad?

-- Ronda Graff has considered ordering cable television, but figures she wouldn't watch half the channels and would go broke from watching the other half -- shopping channels.