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Thanksgiving is meant to be spent surrounded by friends and family. It’s the time of year to give thanks and reflect on all we’re grateful for this holiday season. However, for many students traveling home for the holiday, spending close-quartered quality time with relatives distant and near is dreaded and even feared.

Imagine walking into your grandmother’s house on Thanksgiving evening. It’s cozy, familiar faces are all around and grandpa hasn’t woken from his afternoon nap on the couch. The smell of freshly baked pie and warm turkey lingers in the fall air while “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” plays in the background. Suddenly, you are berated by a barrage of never-ending hellos, hugs and handshakes by family members who saw you a month ago but could swear you were “only yea high” the last time they laid eyes on you.

All the wet kisses, endless small talk and questions about how school is going are enough to make you want to hide in the bathroom and lock the door. I advise you, do NOT do this. But, there is hope.

Before you move on from the standard 20-minute greeting period and head off into your annual unwarranted political debate with your bizarrely radical uncle, you should grab the following items from around the house to prevent any ill will that may arise throughout the rest of the night.

The first item you’ll need is a meat thermometer. I guarantee your grandmother’s method of sticking a fork in the turkey and then feeling to see if the prongs are warm isn’t a legitimate way to cook turkey, or any meat for that matter. A meat thermometer will allow you to quickly and discreetly check the temperature of the basted bird throughout the night, to make sure it’s neither as dry nor as gray as last year’s disaster.

The next item you’ll need is a turkey. Yes, you’ll need a turkey, because the animal currently roasting in your grandmother’s oven is in fact a chicken she mistook for a turkey at the supermarket. Grandma forgot her glasses and grandpa was in the middle of an afternoon nap, so it’s up to you to save Thanksgiving and switch the birds without anyone noticing. Perhaps you should prioritize obtaining a well-seasoned turkey before the meat thermometer. Good luck and Godspeed, in any case.

The last item I recommend you track down is a carving knife. Why would you need a carving knife you might ask? First of all, grandma doesn’t have a carving knife because the old one broke cutting through the char on last year’s disaster. She’s been using a whittled-down chair leg since, and it would be a great gesture if you got her a new knife as a replacement. Second, if all goes wrong with the turkey and meat thermometer again, a strong carving knife is the only thing making it through the meat. There’s no way grandma’s chair leg is doing any damage to a disaster like that.

These items I suggested to you are not essential but can be used to enhance or improve one’s experience on Thanksgiving. Everyone has their own tools they use to get by on Thanksgiving, whether it’s hiding under the table to get away from the grown-ups or spiking the turkey baste with some CBD oil. In short, embrace what is around you, use the tools already in your tool bag or the ones I have just offered you. Enjoy the company of your friends and family while knowing you won’t have to do this again until next year.

Published on November 20, 2024 at 11:55 pm

Contact Jack: jpvanbev@syr.edu