Thanksgiving Traditions
Thanksgiving is a time to reconnect with loved ones over amazing food. We are all familiar with the holiday dinner, where the Alsion community comes together to prepare delicious dishes, decorate the school, and enjoy a festive meal. This year will certainly be a bit different, so Witherly Heights asked the Alsion community how they have celebrated this beloved holiday in past years. From football to hiking to a classic turkey dinner, everyone puts their own spin on Thanksgiving. Though each of our families may have different traditions, we can all agree that we have a whole lot to be grateful for.
“Everyone prepares at least one item of food. Then we sit at a really long table and go around saying what we’re thankful for before we eat.”
– Siddharth Chavan
“Nothing. We don’t do anything.”
-Alexander Zhou
“We go up to my grandparents for Thanksgiving and just make a really stereotypical Thanksgiving dinner because that’s not what we usually have.”
-Kate Lamont
“During thanksgiving, both my parents cook all morning while my sister and I tend to sleep in. We put the NFL games on the TV and we enjoy some great turkey, mash potatoes, and gravy. After lunch, we tend to take long naps since the Thanksgiving meals are so heavy.”
-Luca Barbacioru
“We don’t have a traditional thanksgiving, and every year we do something different. Despite not having any relatives in the state, we always spend the day with loved ones. It seems like nature is always incorporated into the day: last year we went on a hike through the Heritage Grove redwoods and the year before we met friends near picturesque Bryce Canyon National Park (pictured above). The night always ends with a delicious dinner and decadent desserts. Though we don’t have a ‘classic’ American Thanksgiving, I get to spend the day with people I love and eat great food, which is what Thanksgiving is all about.”
-Anusha Sharangpani
“We just cook a nice turkey dinner and sometimes eat with friends that’s all”
-Nicole Adams
“During thanksgiving week, my family will usually go on a road trip to one of the California national parks such as Joshua Tree or Death Valley and stay in a house together with all of the cousins. On Thanksgiving day we’ll either all cook together at the house or, if we stay at home, we will each make a dish at our respective houses (or 10 dishes if you’re Armaan) and then bring them to Ayush’s house and eat there.”
-Nitya Sharma
“My family really doesn’t do anything extravagant. All of my relatives, with the exemption of a cousin in Cupertino, are in India so we really can’t have anybody over. I guess our one “tradition” would be cooking dinner together. It is really all over the place, and sometimes we even get take out. But, we always make sure to spend time together as a family whether it be through watching a movie or even playing a game. My family is super close so thanksgiving is an especially important holiday in terms of celebrating ourselves and our relationships with one another.”
-Ram Charan
“My family usually splits up and everyone does their own thing. Most of my uncles watch sports like football on TV. My aunts and cousins usually cook or play video games.”
-Ian Chang
“Our group of family friends holds a potluck at one of our houses and we eat food other than Indian food. After the potluck, we usually have cooking competitions where we fight each other and make wack things because one time someone made cream cheese oreos or something like that. It sounds awful but I’m told it was kinda good.”
-Varnika Dhandapani
“A Thanksgiving tradition my family and I have is going to my cousin’s house which has become extra special because they now all go to college outside of the Bay Area. We eat traditional Thanksgiving foods in addition to our halal turkey and kebabs, of course!”
-Ayesha Ashraf
“We usually just invite another family over. We’ll either go to another friend’s family’s house or invite another family over for thanksgiving. But if we don’t do that we’ll normally just not do anything.”
-Kane Adams
“Almost every Thanksgiving, we drive down to SoCal where some of my family lives and we spend the whole week cooking and eating together. These past few years we’ve played our version of a game of White Elephant and it’s always fun because everyone brings good gifts. Thanksgiving is usually one of my favorite times of the year because I get to meet up with my family and the food is so good! And if we’re unable to go down south for thanksgiving we always hold a little get-together or party and make a bunch of food.”
-Avani Sethi
“My large family, including my cousins, normally like to go on a road trip somewhere. The past two years, not including this year, of course, we went to places like Joshua Tree and Death Valley. If we are not traveling, we like to gather at someone’s house and assemble a really long table that can fit all of us. Each member of the family cooks some kind of dish and brings it to the dinner. We then go around the table and say what we are thankful for.”
-Ayush Hindocha
“I usually go to my cousin’s house for thanksgiving and me and my family stay there for about three to four days. We try to go hiking and have movie nights for the week. On the actual thanksgiving day, we all make the food together. We have Indian food, like biryani or paneer and roti. Before we eat, we go around the table and say one thing that we’re thankful for that year.”
-Anya Patri
“We go somewhere every year, except for this year, of course, to visit family or friends. Last year, since most of my cousins live there, we went to Texas and had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, with mashed potatoes and casseroles and turkey. The year before that we went to Portland to visit family friends, and we have also gone to places like Denver, to go skiing and Mexico. What we eat depends on the people we are with.”
-Mallika Saoji
“We don’t typically invite anyone over for Thanksgiving, as the rest of our family is back in Russia. We usually just eat dinner together and enjoy the 4 day weekend. We don’t usually eat turkey either. Overall, I would say Thanksgiving isn’t really something we tend to celebrate as much as others do.”
-Dmitry Pleshkov
“We usually have family friends come over to our house or we go to their house. We all make and bring our own foods to share with everybody else. We watch a movie while eating. Then the adults talk with each other and the kids go play outside. We don’t have a specific tradition.”
-Abel Kora
“My family’s thanksgiving traditions are not as excited as what other families do, but it typically consists of just the four of us sitting around the table eating the delicious meal that my parents worked on all morning. Occasionally we have our neighbors over, but that doesn’t happen very often. For the rest of the day we spend time together in the living room watching whatever football game is on or a movie while taking turns going back into the kitchen for seconds.”
-Diana Barbacioru