Students Celebrate Unique Thanksgiving Traditions

Thanksgiving, one of America’s most beloved holidays, allows families to gather and make memories while feasting in commemoration of the Pilgrims’ journey. Every family celebrates Thanksgiving differently, whether by preparing favorite family recipes or by faithfully following special traditions. 

Sophomore Brady Grossman celebrates Thanksgiving with her extended family at her house. In the morning, they play a family football game and “get super competitive because the winning team gets to eat dessert first.” 

After the football game, Brady and her cousins usually gather in the living room to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while the adults prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in the kitchen. However, this year Brady will join the adults in the kitchen to prepare a lemon meringue pie for dessert. She wants “to share [her] favorite dessert with [her] family because they are what [she is] most thankful for.”

Some students go on exotic vacations for Thanksgiving, such as freshman Susanna Weimer. She and her immediate family have gone to Hawaii for the past two years, but this year they plan on visiting Florence, Italy for the week of Thanksgiving. Susanna enjoys “trying new foods and visiting new places while experiencing different cultures and lifestyles.” 

Since they have never visited Florence before, the Weimer family wants to go to famous landmarks such as the Uffizi Gallery, a Renaissance era art museum, and Giardino delle Rose, a rose garden with a view of the city. Instead of traditional Thanksgiving food, Susanna and her family will eat an Italian meal at Trattoria Zà Zà. Susanna hopes the trip to Florence will become a new Thanksgiving tradition for her family.

Junior Ben Denning visits his grandparents in West Virginia every year for Thanksgiving. They have a variety of special traditions that Ben enjoys participating in. In one of them, the adults hide a stuffed pilgrim somewhere in the house, and whoever finds it wins a chocolate turkey. Ben is confident that he “will come out on top this year and show the rest of them how it’s done.” After that, the family normally plays a quick but competitive game of trivia before dinner begins. Whoever wins gets the privilege of saying a Thanksgiving prayer before the feast. 

Though Ben enjoys the competitions, his favorite tradition is when the family gathers in the living room to relax and watch football. This year, Ben looks forward to seeing the Detroit Lions take on the Chicago Bears, and confidently predicts the Bears will emerge victorious. Regardless of who wins, Ben knows that he “will have a great time seeing [his] family members and sharing this holiday with them.”