It may seem cliché to write a column about Thanksgiving the week before break, but I believe some of our most vivid and cherished memories in our lives are shaped around the dinner table with our families.
Thanksgiving isn’t just a holiday that’s based on this simple tradition, but also the only holiday that hasn’t become fully commercialized by retailers, making it much easier to appreciate for what it is: a celebration of family ties.
For most students who go home, Thanksgiving break involves gathering around a dinner table, having a turkey dinner and catching up with family.
Often this very simple habit goes under-appreciated while we’re young and foolish, thinking life is still moving too slowly to impact our family ties.
Even when we try to be conscious of this fact, we neglect what Thanksgiving could mean for other families.
For others, Thanksgiving may resemble a time of conflict in which they realize how distant they are or have become within their families.
Some students may have chosen to pursue a university education just to get away from their homes and to become nothing like the people who raised them. They may have come from divorced families and dread the thought of even spending time with separated parents.
Others may be spending their Thanksgiving visiting sick relatives in hospitals who probably won’t be around to see next year. Some may be reminded of the Thanksgivings they spent with loved ones who passed away, the reminiscence of which won’t be in sorrow but in happiness and appreciation of what they actually have in the present, today.
These situations aren’t the case for most students, but it isn’t unlikely that they could be.
Interestingly enough, Thanksgiving is the only holiday that puts our entire family life into perspective without the gift exchanges and excess candy.
So, even though turkey is a dry bird that leaves you in a sleepy daze, and every year the cranberry sauce never seems to have the right balance of sweetness and tart, Thanksgiving is at least worth celebrating and cherishing for its simple emphasis on family and its lesson that it teaches us all: in life, the simple things are the most valuable.
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