 "Photo: THE REVIEW/Samantha Weintraub")
The leaves are falling, the air is cooling and students are cooking! To kick off the holiday season many students are getting together with close friends to prepare a Thanksgiving feast of their own.
Senior Meaghan Toole says she is gathering with seven of her close friends from freshman year to celebrate Thanksgiving a week before it’s here. Toole and her friends are preparing Thanksgiving dinner together for the first time this year because her friends have a house on East Park Place where the festivities can be hosted, Toole says.
Toole says she and her friends try to get together as much as possible during the school year to cook meals and catch up on each others lives.
“We have ‘family’ dinners throughout the year so this is just one special version of one of our regular dinner,” Toole says.
Each person is bringing their own dish for this holiday celebration. Toole says she is bringing Paula Dean’s cornbread stuffing to compliment the usual turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans and other Thanksgiving fixings.
Another ‘family’ is getting together this year to celebrate Thanksgiving with one another on campus — the students in the university’s Air Force ROTC program.
Senior Fran Fitzpatrick says some members of the program will be celebrating Thanksgiving twice while here at school.
“We have one dinner for everyone in the program, freshmen through seniors,” Fitzpatrick says. “Then we have a separate dinner just for the upperclassmen.”
All 90 students in the program will gather at the detachment — the on-campus home of ROTC — for a Thanksgiving feast prepared by a handful of students.
“For this dinner just a couple of the kids go out to buy and cook all of the food for everyone,” he says.
According to Fitzpatrick this ‘family’ dinner began about two years ago when the students were tasked by their supervisors to find something fun in which everyone in the program could participate.
“It just happened to be around Thanksgiving so we collectively decided, lets have a Thanksgiving dinner,” he says. “For 90 people.”
The second ROTC dinner will be held at Fitzpatrick’s home this year and includes only the upperclassmen. Fitzpatrick says the group has hosted this smaller dinner every year for a long time now and it has become a ‘family’ tradition. Having a Thanksgiving dinner like this is very important for the group because of the bond that they have with one another, he says.
Each dinner guest will bring their own thing to the table — literally. The dinner is potluck and Fitzpatrick says this always makes for great food and a great time.
“I have had so many interesting things,” Fitzpatrick says. “There are some things that I never have at Thanksgiving so it’s interesting to see what other families eat and how they celebrate the holiday.”
Senior Gabrielle Streep says she is celebrating Thanksgiving with her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, on Nov. 23. Streep and her sorority sisters have had a Thanksgiving meal together every year and it has become a tradition within the sorority.
According to Streep, there are roughly 50 to 60 people attending this year’s feast, and each person is responsible for bringing something to the meal. This social event is organized and to be 100 percent sure that every food item is covered, each person is asked to sign up for what they would like to bring.
“We have a legit huge meal,” Streep says. “It’s set up buffet style in our house and we have turkeys, sides, drinks and desserts.”
To make the holiday even more special, the sorority takes this opportunity to take “family” portraits.
“We like to take big/little sister pictures,” she says.
While a Thanksgiving feast cooked by college students may not be as lavish as a meal that took all day to prepare at home, the holiday feelings are just the same. Whether it’s with family or friends, celebrated once, twice or even three times in a single year, Thanksgiving seems to be the holiday season kickoff and students enjoy the feeling that it brings.
“I’m used to having lots of each holiday because we [my family] usually travel visiting members of the family,” Toole says. “Thanksgiving with my friends is just one, good, variation of Thanksgiving for me.”
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