Davis High students celebrate and reflect on Thanksgiving
PHOTO: On Thanksgiving, junior Ellen Ohler ate a traditional dinner with her family in her home.
By Allyson Kang,
BlueDevilHUB.com Editor–
As the Davis High fall break came to a close, students celebrated Thanksgiving in a multitude of ways. While many ate traditional Thanksgiving dishes with their families, others went out to watch movies. Some did not observe the holiday at all.
“We didn’t really do much […] We watched a Christmas movie,” junior Emily Lin said.
Thanksgiving often serves as the starter to the holiday season. As a precursor to the more widely known winter holidays, it is easily ignored in the community’s gearing-up for the end of the year. Around Thanksgiving time, many families in Davis started to put up Christmas trees or other decorations in preparation.
However, many also remembered to eat a classic Thanksgiving meal. Junior Ellen Ohler celebrated with an evening that followed their fall traditions.
“My grandparents came to our house and my mom fixed a huge Thanksgiving dinner with all the classic dishes […] We watched a film about skyscrapers. It was wonderful,” Ohler said.
Because Thanksgiving is modeled around a specific past meal of shared harvest, the North American holiday is full of traditions.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the meal typically includes turkey, bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberries and pumpkin pie, and is shared among the gathered family. However, that is not to say that many do not explore other dishes and companions.
Instead of meeting with extended family, sophomore Grace Mun ate Thanksgiving dinner with her family’s friends from church.
While the gathering consumed what are considered classic Thanksgiving dishes, they also added more cultural dishes like buchinggae, a type of Korean pancake.
However, Mun expressed that neither the traditional meal nor any unique dishes constituted the true meaning of Thanksgiving. The irreplaceable significance of the holiday is that it’s “a time to reflect [on] what you’re most thankful for, and [for] spending time with your loved ones,” Mun said.
Ohler agreed with the sentiment. “Thanksgiving is about spending time with family and being thankful for what you have.”
