Christmas Day and Christmas Eve games in the National Football League (NFL) are an occasional part of the league's schedule. In contrast to Thanksgiving Day games, however, they are not an annual occurrence, since Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday while Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, December 24–25, can fall at any day of the week. The NFL held two Divisional Playoff games on Christmas Day in 1971 when the regular season only spanned a 14-week period. This proved unpopular, and the league avoided any more games on Christmas Day until 1989. Since then, the NFL has occasionally held games on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in some years, as part of week 16 or 17 of the regular season.