Tips for Thanksgiving

It’s the day of Thanksgiving and you are writing your Black Friday shopping lists researching the best stores to hit before 12:00 p.m. Suddenly you realize your entire family is coming over TODAY. You go into a panicked frantic frenzy. What am I supposed to do now? Breathe. Stop panicking. Just listen to these quick and easy ideas for a successful Thanksgiving.

Hosting Thanksgiving can be challenging. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, second cousins, your sister’s boyfriend, your brother’s girlfriend, your best friend, your neighbors, and the friend you never knew your parents were close to, all coming over to eat one big dinner and spend quality time together. But how do you feed and entertain so many people?

Here are some recipes to get you going:

But a big feast is never enough.

“At my house, we have a huge board game competition, which gets pretty intense when the grandparents get involved,” said junior Kasey Maline. “We also like to write skits about what we are thankful for and act them out for everyone to make them laugh and have a great time.” There are a plethora of games and fun activities you can do with your family to have a good time. But in case you can’t think of anything, here are some ideas:

• Hot camera: Play hot potato with a camera on self-timer.
• Who’s the baby: Bring in baby pictures and guess who’s who
• Telephone, charades or even simply board games like Monopoly or Apples-to-Apples

“Every Thanksgiving my family goes over to my grandparent’s house,” said junior Melissa McDonald. “When we sit down for dinner, we go around the table and each person says 10 things we are thankful for, but the catch is that you can’t repeat anything that someone else said.”

Thanksgiving is all about being with the people you love and showing them that you appreciate them. Giving thanks for all of the wonderful blessings that you have is the core behind Thanksgiving.

“We want to show each other how much they mean to us,” Maline said. “My family has the best time when we laugh together, so playing board games and joking in skits brings us closer together.”

Thanksgiving is a chance for families who do not see each other often to come together and to spend quality time together.

“Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our lives that we forget about the little blessings that God gives us,” said sophomore Delaney Mazelin. “For me, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to take a step back and really appreciate everything from my friends to my family to the food on the table.”

It’s easy to forget about the little blessings in life, but Thanksgiving allows us to see these blessings and all of the many blessings we have and appreciate their importance in our lives.

“In society, although we are all grateful for one another, we don’t always express that regularly and it’s nice to have a holiday that is for expressing your thankfulness for each other,” said English teacher Mary Wesierski. “It’s nice to have the opportunity to forget about regular life and how difficult some days can be and just acknowledge the goodness.” “I’m thankful for life, love, family, friends, Starbucks, education, my house and every blessing in my life,” Maline said.

“I’m thankful for my wonderful family and friends who are always there for me and the time I get to spend with all of them on the holidays,” McDonald said.

“I’m thankful for the school I am so fortunate to attend, my family, my friends and just life in general. There isn’t much to be unthankful for,” Mazelin said.

What are you thankful for? Take a minute and really think about what Thanksgiving means and use this opportunity to show your loved ones how much they mean to you by just being together and having a good time in each other’s company.