Dear Thanksgiving,
I want to apologize to you. On November 1st, I put away my Halloween costume and immediately turned on some Christmas music. I didn’t even spare you a quick thought. In fact, I completely forgot about you until my mom called and asked me to make sure I knew what my travel plans were for Thanksgiving break. Truth be told, you’re one of my favorite holidays, and I can’t believe you slipped my mind.
Stores have been gearing up for Christmas since before Halloween, and I get it. Maybe you get forgotten so much because Hallmark hasn’t made as much of a deal about you as it has about literally every other holiday. All I know is you are the best holiday out of the whole year. Many holidays have traditional foods that families eat together, but your celebration, Thanksgiving, is the food. If we’re being honest, turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes rank pretty high on my list of favorite meals. Thanksgiving dinner is like the kick-off to the entire holiday season. If you don’t want to take my word for it, maybe you’ll take Mojo’s, who can be seen below waiting, rather impatiently, for dinner to be served.
While your food is fantastic, I think the best part about you is that you bring so many families together. Bringing families together across state lines during Christmas can be hard because everyone has their own Christmas tree, presents and traditions for the kids, but you are a much more relaxed holiday. For me, you provide me my first opportunity to go home to my family in months. I didn’t realize how wonderful it is to be surrounded by your family while sharing a meal until that wasn’t my daily reality anymore. Even though the food is wonderful, your real charm lies in bringing people together.
In fact, you are one of the only holidays that is celebrated by the entire country instead of just one religion. How can you be so overlooked in favor of Christmas when only part of the country celebrates Christmas, but everyone celebrates you? I think the answer is, as sad as it is, the presents. Christmas takes some serious planning. There are decorations to be hung, trees to be bought, presents to be planned and purchased and in some cases, vacations to be planned. Instead of being excited about your arrival, most adults view the arrival of November as a shock: There’re only HOW MANY paychecks left before Christmas?!
So, Thanksgiving, I really do mean it when I say I’m sorry I forgot you this year. Even if you’re pretty underappreciated on the holiday scale, I, and many others, still think you’re the best. I, for one, am super excited to go home and celebrate you with my family. Maybe my grandmother and mom will let me help with the turkey!
Then again, maybe not!
Much love,
An average college student