Many students won’t have the chance to travel home for Thanksgiving, or indeed any other trivial holiday observed during the school session.
These holidays are usually seen as an opportunity to spend time with family or friends, as a day of celebration. Yet, for the holidays that students can’t be bothered purchasing a ticket home for, there are college replacement holidays.
The college replacement holiday is a commonly a farce of the actual holiday listed on the calendar; students commemorate these holidays by creating their own traditions.
Just as Groundnog Day might be for Groundhog Day (a day in which a group of students try to find and purchase eggnog by scavenging local grocery markets two months after Christmas. If able to find a carton, spring will come early that year).
In this case, Friendsgiving is the college replacement holiday for that of Thanksgiving.
For students who are left to walk the grounds this Thanksgiving break, or even for those who’ve managed to make it home, here are a few activities we can induct into our college Thanksgiving traditions.
1. The Thanksgiving Anti-Parade
Boycott the traditional Thanksgiving Parade for something better: The Thanksgiving Blanket-Pillow Fort. Any televised event in New York will become tedious after the first several minutes.
“I generally try to tune out the television when I’m with my family anyway,” sophomore Rachael Garrison said. The fun will last forever in this comfort palace (provided that your fort is structurally sound).
2. Festive Arts & Crafts
For cheap yet tasteful décor, make paper hand-turkeys to hand around the dorm room or house. This activity never gets old; the way the pencil vexingly tickles your fingers as you trace your hand, the fetor of Elmer’s Glue, and of course all the colored paper clippings strewn across the floor like carnage. To make things interesting, try to create one six-fingered hand-turkey and see if any of your guests notice.
3. Preparing the Meal: Risk Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
Cooking isn’t everyone’s craft, especially for the lackluster University specters who haunt school grounds during Thanksgiving break.
Pillsbury crescent rolls are a feast to any busy academic. Invite your friends to bake Risk Pillsbury crescent rolls. Fill any of the hors d’oeuvres with your favorite filling, such as nutella or jam, while leaving a few crescent rolls remaining to be the risk. Convince your loved ones to sample the tainted selection. The putrid alternative filling may include sauerkraut, marmite or Fancy Feast.
4. Watch a Classic
The cinematic entertainment of the evening must be, hands down, Addams Family Values. Wednesday and Pugsley’s musical production of the first Thanksgiving, with Wednesday playing Pocahontas, is a heart-wrenching scene—truly an American classic.
Some argue that any part of the Addams Family franchise should be reserved for Halloween only. In response to that argument, sophomore Lucy Spurlick said,“They shouldn’t be invited to Friendsgiving.”
Living on a college campus is in many ways peculiar; particularly in the way it presents its environment: the clean-cut, expansive lawns, the built-in walkways lined with flower beds and strategically-adorned plants, the every-which-way distribution of deciduous trees—the certain aspects of college life that all makes us feel civilized as well as a little uncomfortable.
In a way, the typical college campus is a ‘practice’ society. We might as well have ‘practice’ holidays if we can’t enjoy them among the outside world.
