There’s a certain time of year that everyone always gets excited about. It’s when the snow finally starts to fall and holiday songs are sung. People gather around with family and friends and the world is full of merry and joy and…
Hold up. It’s not Christmas yet. We have Thanksgiving in a week!
I have no idea when the idea of just skipping Thanksgiving came into fruition. In all my years, Thanksgiving’s always been a time of gathering with family, eating food and just relaxing and making jokes with each other. Now that I’m in college, I cherish Thanksgiving more than ever because I hardly ever get to see my family.
I’ve also discovered that some people don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving. I’m not talking about foreign exchange students who might not know what Thanksgiving is (it is only an American holiday, after all), but rather the people who grew up with the holiday in their homes. They refuse to sit down at a table and acknowledge the holiday; they’d rather just wait until Christmas comes or just skip to that holiday altogether.
In a way, I’ve noticed that stores and websites do this, too. A part of me thinks it’s really just a marketing tactic; people usually get happier around the holidays, which means they’ll buy more. So, putting out decorations and playing carols every single day nonstop should make someone happy (and happy to pull out their wallet.)
But this doesn’t really work; not for me, at least.
When I went to bed on Halloween as a kid, I never expected to hear “All I Want For Christmas is You” the next day in a grocery store – but that’s the way it is now. I can’t go anywhere – whether it’s a CVS or a fancy restaurant – that isn’t playing Christmas carols, and I can’t tell you how infuriating that is (ok, maybe not infuriating, just a first-world issue that sort of gets to me.)
I know some people don’t celebrate Thanksgiving due to the historical aspect of it, as they think it gives Christopher Columbus and the pilgrims a light they don’t deserve. I won’t lie: what Columbus did was awful and he wasn’t a good person. However, I never associated Thanksgiving with this. Like, ever.
We all dressed up as pilgrims and Native Americans as kids and put on that little play in elementary school, but as we got older, the historical aspect left us. To some, it stayed and they want to respectfully pass, but I just want to make one last argument for the people who don’t want to celebrate.
I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving for the history. I’m a history buff and love to learn about the past and where our country comes from, but it never influences my every day decisions.
I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving for the sports. There’s always a football game on Thanksgiving that people seem to love to watch. That’s where the family gathers and eats dessert and cheers or boos on the team that’s participating in the tradition. I only just got into football when I came to Penn State, so watching this is fairly new to me. Nevertheless, it’s still not the top reason.
I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving for the food, although I wish I did. As someone who hardly gets to eat during a normal day at school because I have classes all the time, having a sit-down meal is rare. When it’s home-cooked food, that makes it even better. Rolls and turkey and stuffing, oh my. Still, that’s not the top reason.
I celebrate Thanksgiving for family. My family is truly the best thing that I have in this world other than the few people outside of it that are close to me. Living alone is hard and sometimes parents are actually knowledgeable, much to some student’s disdain (I say in a sarcastic way.) I call my mom every day to just randomly talk to her. I talk with my dad about little electrical things that I definitely should know how to fix but always need his help with. I text my brother often about little things that happen at school that he understands and went through to heed his advice on what to do.
When Thanksgiving comes around, I’m no longer by myself. I’m with my family again and I get to talk with them face-to-face about my life. About everything that’s going on and what’s going to happen for the rest of the semester, about my friends and my boyfriend and all the drama that is college. Then we get to sit down, have a good meal, crack jokes and be together. That is the best reason to celebrate Thanksgiving.
If someone doesn’t have a family like that, and that’s a reason why you don’t celebrate it, I understand. But for me, this has always been why I come home. Why I sit at the table and play card games and watch football games that I definitely wouldn’t watch regularly at school – because my family is the reason why I’m here. The least I can do is go home, celebrate a good meal and be thankful for them being in my life.
Even so, at the end of the day, at least I get stuffing. That’s always worth the Thanksgiving dinners. Yum!