It’s That Time Of Year Again: What Does Thanksgiving Mean To Grace Students and Faculty?
Image by Miranda Chao Hwang ’24
The feeling of sitting in front of the oven waiting for the timer to go off, signifying that the food is ready. Setting the table with the fine china that sits in a cabinet, waiting all year long to be used. The warm and cozy feeling people get as Thanksgiving approaches, when we get to eat special holiday meals and gather with family and friends. What did Thanksgiving look like to Grace students, and how did they celebrate?
Thanksgiving is an annual holiday observed every year in the United States on the last Thursday of November. It is believed to be modeled after a harvest feast shared by the English colonists and the Wampanoag people in the 1600s. On this holiday, people will typically go around their tables saying what they are thankful for. Thanksgiving is a nostalgic holiday usually spent with the people we love.
For many people, the Thanksgiving feast is what they look forward to most. The feast consists of turkey, cranberries, stuffing, green bean casserole, potatoes, pumpkin pie, and other foods explicitly catered to your family.
Along with the rest of the world, students and teachers at Grace look forward to Thanksgiving. The 10th-grade dean, Colin Todd, said that his favorite Thanksgiving food was cornbread stuffing, while Spanish Teacher Iris Cortes noted that her favorite was turkey. She added that she still prepares it the way that her mom used to when she was a child. Mr. Todd said that every year he puts on the Macy’s Day Parade and then the annual dog show for his family. Ms. Cortes spends her Thanksgivings with her sister and her niece every year, and always looks forward to spending time with them. It is always nice to know that when Thanksgiving comes around, we will get to carry out the traditions that we look forward to so much over the year.
Along with the Thanksgiving meal, people look forward to their travel plans, whether they are visiting family one or one thousand miles away. Julien E. ‘28 mentioned that he traveled to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving and celebrated his grandmother’s 75th birthday with his family. Nelly Z. ‘28 said she goes to a friendsgiving every year with her family at their friend’s house. Thanksgiving brings that warm and cozy feeling, simply knowing that you have something to look forward to.
Food, travel, family, and friends — it doesn’t get much better than that! Thanksgiving is a holiday of reflection on our lives spent with the people we love most. It is a time to reset and deeply reflect on the lives that we are living and who we are living them with. So we sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the holiday!
Myla I. ‘28, the author, is a staff writer for The Grace Gazette.