The stock image Thanksgiving involves a lot of people around a nicely decorated table with a large turkey and a ridiculous amount of extra food. This image doesn't always depict the reality of the holiday though.
What does your Thanksgiving look like? Do you enjoy the holiday? What is your strangest or most wonderful memory of the holiday?
Although thanksgiving has an ideal picture, I don't think this is very realistic. Why is thanksgiving a day known for stuffing your face? By definition, it is a day to give thanks, so why is it a day that we indulge ourselves so much. And then, starting at 12 O' clock, people wait in lines and get so involved in buying things at a 'sale.' People get so into shopping that they push and shove, and there have been instances where people have died from being trampled. And this is the day after we have been 'thankful for what we have'?? This just does not seem logical to me, and it is actually sickening if you think about it. Thanksgiving should be a day in which we give back to others to show our thankfulness, instead of furthering our consumerist society.
My thanksgiving is usually with either my mom or dad's side of the family. A tradition that we upheld this year is going on a trip to the Greenbrier together. We spent a lot of time together and made great memories. If we don't go on this trip, we have our family to our house to have dinner. I do enjoy the holiday because I love spending time with my family, and I love food. It's kind of a day where I don't get weird looks for eating so much. Yes, I know I am contradicting what I said in the paragraph above, but I do enjoy thanksgiving! My most wonderful memory of the holiday was last year when my family volunteering at Sals and served the homeless. This is what I pictured thanksgiving to really be about. The people were so thankful to be given food, except some were very greedy and would get very upset about their drink not being diet or something like that. Another great memory was at this thanksgiving dinner. My aunt and uncle adopted a little girl, Lifu, from China a few years ago. She is 6 years old and can sometimes be a handful. She always goes "you know what?" and usually follows up with something annoying like i can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but this was different. After we were at dinner very late, she said, "You know what? Guys, it's not about the food; it is about the time we spend together." This really stuck with me and made me happy that the youngest person at the table truly understood the holiday best.
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