Thanksgiving break isn’t all as expected when you are a commuter. (Abby Headrick/Flickr Creative Commons)
There’s just something about having a Thanksgiving break as a commuter that I can’t put my finger on.
Oh wait. Nope, I got it. It’s that it feels just like any other day at home.
I actually spent my break at my internship. Though I had Thanksgiving day off there, I worked at a restaurant to make up for it. After working at a desk job for so long, my feet were not used to all the hustle of a restaurant. My knees were sore, and oddly enough, my fingers were as well. I wasn’t out of breath per se, but I certainly didn’t feel fit. My five hours of hard work at the salad bar paid off with free prime rib and salad, so at least I had that going for me.
Even though I didn’t use it to relax with my family, I’m glad UConn gives a full week off. If I were away at school, I know I would be missing home by now. The craving to be in my hometown and see my family would be ever-present, but as it stands, I don’t really place much emphasis on Thanksgiving. The past few years, we went out to a buffet and ate as much as we wanted, so that was different and exciting, but now we’re just at home. The same place I go to every single day.
It’s funny, my family is actually pretty large but we don’t really see any of them. I have three siblings so we all fill up a table, but it’s only my immediate family munching on turkey and stuffing each year. We used to have big celebrations, but for some reason we stopped coming together as a family and began doing it on our own. We have all the right foods, the candles and the prayers, but that’s pretty much a normal day for me. I don’t see any relatives that I haven’t seen in a year and hear their crazy stories. I don’t have any new cousins to meet or dishes to try. I’ve just got my normal family, which is amazing, but normal.
For me, Thanksgiving break isn’t all it’s hyped up to be.
I know that some commuters have their own lives with their own apartments, but to put it frankly, I’m not that cool. I still live at home, saving buckets of money, living life as though holidays don’t exist. I’m thankful I don’t miss them though; I’m thankful for my ordinary holiday. I couldn’t imagine life without my dad being around to fix my car, or my mom writing little notes on the counter reminding me that there’s sandwich meat in the refrigerator. I wouldn’t know what to do without my two dogs running to the door to greet me everyday. Without my sisters to annoy me, who knows where I’d be. I would probably be in a lot less pain without my brother, to be honest. He still doesn’t seem to know his own strength.
Basically, Thanksgiving doesn’t mean too much to me, but my family sure does. Even if I’m not thankful for an extraordinary holiday, I can still be grateful for them.
Hannah Desrosiers is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at hannah.desrosiers@uconn.edu.