The Importance of Celebrating Thanksgiving with Family

Usually over Thanksgiving break it is just me, my mother, and aunt at the dinner table. And that “dinner table” is actually the coffee table in the living room. It seems quite different from the generic thanksgiving dinner setting, with the whole family congregated around the large table in the kitchen, yet it does not phase me. I’m fine with how we celebrate Thanksgiving, it does not matter that there are only three of us; at least we’re still able to celebrate the holiday. For this year it was pretty much the same set up, but we had a 4th guest. A very good friend of mine. Other than her presence, everything was pretty much the same as any other year. My mother made a good variety of food, we ate on the coffee table in the living room, and we talked and laughed with each other. It was a great experience, like every other year.

Although we don’t take the generic stance on how we set up and eat our food, we most certainly take a generic stance when it comes to the food itself. Usually we eat duck, but we tried turkey this year, with stuffing, red cabbage, cranberry sauce, scalloped potatoes, and apple pie. Everything tasted as good as ever and really made me appreciate the moment as I would not be eating this food any other time in the year. I could, if I really wanted to, but I feel like that food is meant just for that day alone. I just wouldn’t be able to appreciate it as much as I could on the holiday, and that makes me think, are these values I believe to have for the food on this holiday really for the food or for the holiday itself? Looking back at this Thanksgiving dinner, as well as all the ones in the past, I realize that we seem to just be taking this holiday as a moment to appreciate our food and family. In that, our values seem to be in the holiday rather than the food. The food just serves as a type of catalyst to get the jollyness of the situation going. Sure, we are all very happy together, and we are taking our time eating the food, savoring every bite as we know this is only a once in a year moment, but who's to say the food brings out these values?

Looking back on it now, I fully believe the Thanksgiving holiday gives us a moment like no other. It has its own feel to it, different from Christmas, Easter, and all the other holidays, and for that reason we will appreciate the moment as much as 24 hours will allow us. My family, like many other families, will all appreciate this moment, taking their time cooking the food as well as eating it, but will sadly go back to eating their microwaved and canned foods the day after. It seems to just be the mentality of the holidays. You appreciate it as much as you can in the moment just because you know it will only come once a year, and after that you no longer care. To sum all this junk up, I believe there are a great amount of values present in the Thanksgiving holiday, solely because this holiday occurs once a year. If it were any other day, we would display our true value in relationship to food, eating fast, ultimately not appreciating the food.