Thanksgiving: the holiday’s middle child
Halloween brings all the spooky frights, Christmas brings all the merry cheer, so what happens to Thanksgiving?
Thanksgiving is the forgotten middle child of the holiday season. Halloween is the pinnacle of fall, with all the warm scents and chilling movies to keep you up at night. To finish off the month, a night of dressing up in costumes leads to Mariah Carey streaming the minute the clock strikes 12. The Christmas craze sweeps the nation, beckoning people to buy trees and search for Black Friday deals.
Thanksgiving is underlooked for so many reasons. Why complain about an additional break from school? Sure, it’s not as long as Christmas, but it’s like the spring break of the fall. A whole week off from school dedicated to eating good food needs to start being appreciated.
Would you rather stay in school for a full week and have more work loaded onto your plate or would you rather fill up your own plate of food you enjoy and sleep afterward? That’s exactly what I thought.
Halloween brings all the variety of candy and Christmas brings all those special sweets that you can only eat in the month of December. Thanksgiving serves you a full meal, not just fun-themed treats.
However, people don’t seem to realize that you can make turkey and mashed potatoes at any time of the year. It’s as if eating that food on Thanksgiving makes it taste a thousand times better. The amount of fridge space after leftovers have been packed away can be frustrating, but when you leave to head back to college for the two stressful weeks before Christmas break, it’s the best luggage to bring back to your dorm.
Thanksgiving is also known for spending time with your family. It’s also the time of year when you get interrogated by all your family members who haven’t seen you since the school year started. Mentally prepare yourself on your drive or flight back home by running through the most common questions you’ll be asked: How’s school going? Have you finally picked out a major? Are you not single anymore? What’s it like to be an adult with actual responsibilities? If you can skirt around these questions quickly, you can move to more interesting topics by either switching the questions around on your relatives or about literally anything else.
One of the main reasons that Thanksgiving doesn’t get too much attention is that there isn’t a lot of media tied to the event. Halloween has thrillers on TV in the month of October and December has Christmas music blared on every speaker and Christmas movies on every channel.
Thanksgiving gets a six-hour parade with most of the same balloon floats that are used year after year. There’s no Thanksgiving song you can sing to boost your spirits. Most of the day is spent eating food and sleeping and you can get that same experience regardless of the time of year.
However you choose to celebrate Thanksgiving, make sure you take time to spend it with the ones you care about and give thanks for all that you have.