Thanksgiving without your loved ones is something that I have had to experience two years in a row now. Although it is a trying experience, I feel more independent and ready to be out in the real world because of it. It is hard to not be sitting around a table with copious amounts of food on one of America’s favorite days of the year surrounded by your blood relatives, but it gives you the opportunity to get to know the family of those helping you through college, those sitting with you on those long and trying nights, those who are there for you nearly every other day of the year. You get to meet the people that raised your favorite person and best friends, and you get to see why that person is the way they are. If that’s not something to be thankful for, I’m not sure what is.
Your first Thanksgiving away from home is going to be a tough one, there’s no point in lying. It’s not only tough for you. Your parents and family back home are stuck looking at the empty seat around the dinner table that is all but calling your name. The food at your new Thanksgiving home is most likely going to be different then what you eat at your own house, but you learn to love it because the family that took you in is so kind and trying their hardest to make you feel okay. Being away from home makes you even more thankful for what’s there, because sometimes you don’t realize how good you have it until you no longer do. Being away from home for Thanksgiving is a reminder to be thankful for family even when they drive you crazy and make you mad, as you get to witness other brothers and sisters argue about the things you wish you had your siblings around to argue about. Thanksgiving is about family, but more importantly it’s about being thankful for family, for friends, for food, and for each other.
When you leave that house after Thanksgiving you will have earned yourself another whole family that practically begs you to come visit again. You had good food, a warm house, and incredible company. You have grown closer with someone that you spend the majority of your time at school with, and you have a new found appreciation for your parents and other loved ones. All in all you feel thankful. What more could Thanksgiving be about?