Every Thanksgiving, Americans gather with friends and family to celebrate a tradition as old as time: watching the Obama girls get embarrassed by their dad's lame jokes.
As part of his constitutional* duties, the president pardons two turkeys to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday and gives a speech laden with cringeworthy puns.
"Of course, Thanksgiving is a family holiday as much as a national one," Obama said at Wednesday's ceremony, "so for the past seven years I've established another tradition: embarrassing my daughters with a corny-copia of dad jokes about turkeys."
But because 2016 is 2016, we were denied the girls' facial expressions this year, with Obama telling reporters they had "a scheduling conflict."
"Actually, they just couldn't take my jokes anymore," he conceded. "They were fed up."
Obama instead brought two of his nephews, Austin and Aaron Robinson, who, he said, "unlike Malia and Sasha, have not yet been turned cynical by Washington."
Here are some of the lame dad jokes the Obama girls didn't have to endure this year:
* "I want to take a moment to recognize the brave turkeys who weren't so lucky, who didn't get to ride the gravy train to freedom."
* "[The non-pardoned turkeys] met their fate with courage and sacrifice — and proved that they weren't chicken."
* "We should also make sure that everyone has something to eat on Thanksgiving. Of course, except the turkeys, because they're already stuffed."
* "When somebody at your table tells you that you've been hogging all the side dishes and you can't have any more, I hope that you respond with a creed that sums up the spirit of a hungry people: Yes, we cran."
The girls may not be off the hook yet, though.
Obama said he may well continue the turkey pardoning tradition when he's no longer president, just without all the fanfare of the White House press corps.
"No way I'm cutting this habit cold turkey," he said.
😑😑😑
So, with the Obama presidency almost over, let's put on some music and look back on some of Sasha and Malia's most iconic Thanksgiving turkey pardoning/dad joke moments.
2009:
2010:
2011:
2012:
2013:
2014:
2015:
*Sigh* We'll miss this tradition — but the Obama girls most certainly will not.
