Don't Forget to Appreciate Thanksgiving This Year

While Thanksgiving may be a reminder of the beginning of the end of the native people of North America, I still really enjoy Thanksgiving. I like to think of it as an example of a time when food brought people together, and has brought people together for a meal annually ever since.

The first Thanksgiving may have been crude, a gathering 53 pilgrims about 90 native peoples according to the Pilgrim Hall Museum. They were celebrating the harvest, as was customer in England, which was made possible by the help of Squanto. Little did they know, people in the future would be eating a substance call tofurkey and slicing gelatinized cranberry to eat it with while gathering with their cousins andtheir great aunt Gurty, stuffing themselves to the gills all the while.

Some Thanksgiving meals may be less than satisfactory depending on the family, but almost ever family has adopted the tradition of thinking about what they’re thankful for. Family, friends, health, life in general, we remember what is important as our mood drops with the mercury. We gather with our loved ones, sometimes knowing that this may be the last time we are all together. This is what I love most about Thanksgiving.

My second favorite thing though, of course, is the cooking! Last year I chose to not make the six hour journey home from college and instead spent Thanksgiving with my old roommate from freshman year who I went to high school with. Ever since I met her parents, I knew they pressured her too much about her weight and made her feel guilty for eating. To me this was insane; she was very tall, but at a perfectly healthy weight with a normal appetite for her size.

We decided to make our own complete thanksgiving dinner, entirely from scratch and from carefully selected recipes. One of those being my absolute favorite recipe from my great grandmother, a former restaurant chef and all around amazing person, her delicious brown sugar pan rolls known as Granny Rolls. We had a full turkey, green beans, granny rolls, fresh cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, a pumpkin pie to top it off, and a bit of rum to keep us warm since one of my roommates had used the oven and left something that had bubbled over in the bottom of the oven, which burned, filling my entire apartment with smoke. We had to leave the windows open the whole time we were cooking, letting in the very chilly Arcata air, and setting off the smoke detector several times.

It was definitely one of the most memorable Thanksgivings I’ve ever had. Aside from the green beans, I was able to make everything by myself, and share my cooking with someone who was truly grateful to be eating it. That year I was grateful to be giving someone the gift of a guilt free thoroughly enjoyed meal, sharing an amazing family recipe with a friend, and the turkey wasn’t even dry either.

This summer I moved back to my hometown, living with my boyfriend. Whether the two of us have Thanksgiving dinner alone at our house, dinner with my family, or his, I know I have a lot to be thankful for and I hope I can share it with everyone.

So this year, when you gather around the table, whether you have a full feast before you or have whatever you can scrape together, just remember to enjoy your time with your family and remember to share the food you love with people that matter to you the most.

-Melissa Kilmer