If you are lucky enough to be home with family for this upcoming Thanksgiving, it is important to show those people you love that you care about them. My father says every single Thanksgiving how it is his favorite holiday. I now understand why.
Thanksgiving is the best holiday in college because it is right around the time when us Collegiettes truly start to miss those important people back home. By this time in the semester, you have so many stories and things you learned from living independently that you just cannot wait to tell your family. I remember feeling especially homesick at many times during my very first semester at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I made a new friend group with my floor mates in Leach Hall in Northeast and I could not wait to come home to the small town of Lincoln in Massachusetts to tell my family and friends all about them. During that first Thanksgiving break, I met up with my closest girlfriends from high school. We called ourselves, “The Nine” because there were nine of us (how did we come up with that clever name?) and we could not wait to catch up with each other at the Cheesecake Factory in the Natick Mall. We shared hilarious and embarrassing stories over baskets of bread and tons of pasta. Ironically enough, it was the last time that all nine of us were together, but it felt so good at the time to touch base with people who knew me so well. Us Collegiettes understand just how nice it is to reconnect with people from home. If you are a freshman, you will know soon enough just how great the timing of Thanksgiving is.
For me, Thanksgiving means spending as much time as possible with people you love in your life and taking a break from classes and your college social life. If your parents are helping you pay your way through college, (or if they are not) let them know just how much you are enjoying it. Either way, tell them a funny story! Or tell them about a great class you are taking or a smart professor you have. And most importantly, tell them how much you love them and missed them because they deserve to know. I remember last Thanksgiving, I told them a little bit of information that I learned from my Neuroscience class that I had to take for my Psychology major. I told them that turkey actually does not make you sleepy. Professor Lori Astheimer told our class that you would actually need to eat about one hundred turkeys to get enough tryptophan to make yourself sleepy. The real reason you get sleepy after dinner on Thanksgiving is because you drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of food. My family thought that was hilarious and if you want to impress yours with some knowledge from college, I give you my permission to channel your inner nerd with this information, too!
Living away from home has taught me just how much my parents mean to me. I find myself thinking about the things they taught me about work ethic, enjoying life, and how being honest is valued in our family. I also realized while living away from home that they are only human. They make mistakes and embarrass you, but that just makes them real people. To be honest, I cannot wait for my parents to embarrass me at home. I also cannot wait to see my hilarious, beautiful, smart, and kind sisters and grandmother and exchange funny stories. I hope that you Collegiettes will enjoy your time at home, as well, and tell your family just how much you adore their company!