Thanksgiving is Coming – Be Thankful!

As Thanksgiving is looming this coming weekend (for us, Canadian, Thanksgiving is October 12 this year – to our American readers, if we waited until November, all our fields would be frozen by then!), some students will be able to go home for the long weekend, and some won’t.

If you go home this coming weekend, be thankful for the family you have and the time you have to enjoy them.  Enjoy a home-cooked meal, hugs from relatives perhaps, and a relatively clean bathroom.

If you cannot be with family this weekend, do not feel lonely.  Be thankful for what you have regardless, and why not enjoy a meal with friends? You are not alone in your situation because for many students, the trip is too expensive to take for 3 days, and the mid-October holiday often means mid-term time too.  Set aside two or three hours on Saturday or Sunday night for dinner (you have to eat, right?) and get together with friends for a shared meal.  You don’t even have to cook!  Prepared entrees can be found in the frozen section of the grocery store and if you organise a pot-luck event, nobody will be stripping their wallet down for the event. You may not be able to get Mom’s pumpkin pie, but you can certainly get a store-bought one or use the recipe at the back of a can of pureed pumpkin; add some real whipped cream (the type in a can that you shake and ‘spray’) or some ice cream, and it’ll feel like Thanksgiving.

There is one thing you can do for another: international students and students from the other side of our beautiful country will most likely not be able to go home.  While organizing your plans for Thanksgiving dinner, why not ensure that everyone you know also has fun plans: invite a student you don’t know so well, just because you suspect he or she won’t have a Thanksgiving dinner.  Invite someone who has not traditionally celebrated Thanksgiving because it was not in their culture to do so.  This person may have their first Thanksgiving dinner with you – and remember it for the rest of their lives.

Finally, if all your friends are going away for Thanksgiving but you are not; if you cannot find another person in your situation and the thought of having a weekend alone is depressing, volunteer.  Many places, such as woman’s shelters, soup kitchen, churches, and the likes need people to help cook and serve Thanksgiving dinner to others.  There, for certain, your presence and your work will be appreciated. 

Most of all, don't feel lonely; you are NOT alone!