Thanksgiving Reflections

Joanna Leski and Alyssa DeSimone

Thanksgiving as a different meaning to everyone who does celebrate it. Every individual has some different activity they look to during the holiday season, or even they an activity they don’t look forward to! Some insight from Leyden’s members:

“This will actually be the first Thanksgiving I’ve ever celebrated. I came to America for this whole semester to brush up on my English speaking skills. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Poland, so it was interesting to learn about the history and why it’s celebrated. We don’t even have a holiday that’s close to what Thanksgiving is. I think this is a neat holiday because a lot of people forget to think what they’re thankful for so it’s to a have a day to reflect all of that.  I’m very excited to try stuffing for the first time!” –Junior, Joanna S.

“Thanksgiving is synonymous with spending the day in traffic for me! I love having a big family, but there are way too many houses we have to visit.” –Senior,  Elexis Sutfin

“Others might be spending their breaks in other states, cities, or at families reunions while I spend mostly at home. Usually, I’d hang out with friends over break but most of my friends are busy with their families. The only family I have that doesn’t live in Bulgaria is my mom, dad, and my older brother. We do have our typical Thanksgiving dinner but after that I’m left with a few days of free time- perfect for studying! Especially with finals being just around a corner, it’s a good time to start reviewing the content I haven’t looked at since the first month of school. Teachers typically don’t give out any homework during Thanksgiving break so I can put all this free time to good use!” –Senior Monika Dimitrow

“After the whole family gets together and is done with dinner, all the boys- even my older uncles all play video games together. This has been my favorite unofficial family tradition for years and my favorite part of my Thanksgiving.” –Sophomore, Kacper Niewinski

“Thanksgiving means sitting around the dinner table with my whole family and hearing my mom tell embarrassing stories about me.” Junior, Danielle Rocha

“Thanksgiving is two important holidays right after another! First, my whole family eats until we can’t anymore. Then, we my older cousins and I take a power to prepare ourselves for the long morning ahead spent Black Friday shopping. We spent the rest of our holiday being thankful for all the good deals” –Junior, Martyna S.

“Ever since I was 10, I’ve been helping my mom prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving isn’t a Guatemalan holiday, but we add a Guatemalan twist to our dinner. We do have the typical Thanksgiving items that we cook such as the turkey, but a lot our dinner consists of Guatemalan foods such as tamales, sweet potato and orange arroz con leche, and chorizo. My favorite part is getting to bond with my mom while preparing dinner and we get to make up for the time we lose together while I’m at school and she’s at work.” Senior, Mitzy Perez

“At my house or my sister’s house, we always have the turkey and tons and tons of desserts. Usually the Dallas Cowboys play a football game on Thanksgiving night, and that’s a big hit in our house, but our favorite activity is to get ready by the end of the holiday for black friday shopping!” –Mrs.Debra Mewes, security guard

“Our Thanksgiving is a little different than others. All my family comes over to my house to celebrate but in our Mexican household we don’t eat turkey. My family brings chicken and everything else to eat besides the turkey.” –Bianca Medina, senior

“I have seven brothers and sisters, and Thanksgiving used to be celebrated at one of my brother’s house, but since our family has grown so much including kids and grandkids, this year I will be celebrating Thanksgiving at my daughter’s house with her kids.” –Peggy Kasallis, assistant to the principal

“My family all gets together and celebrates being very thankful for still getting together for Thanksgiving every year. Each year we switch houses for our dinner to be held at.” –Cynthia Villagran, freshman

“My whole family gets together at my aunt’s house to eat a ton of food. After we’re done eating all my cousins and I have a huge sleepover and wake up the next morning to go black friday shopping.” –Myah Martinez, senior

“The entire family gets together, and we divide meals to bring to the dinner. My specialty is sweet potato and green bean casserole. After digestion we do absolutely nothing.” –Patricia Muldoon, counselor