My First Thanksgiving
Last week saw the coming of Thanksgiving and all the festivities and traditions that come with it. I am talking about the turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, green beans, corn and maybe even mashed potatoes. That may not be an exhaustive list but it is more or less comprehensive. As a Kenyan, Thanksgiving isn’t actually a holiday where I’m from and it is safe to assume that this was my first Thanksgiving. I had numerous conversations with some of my classmates during the days leading up to it and the reactions I received were pretty hilarious. Some people were genuinely mortified that I hadn’t experienced this particular holiday while others were downright empathetic and close to tears (ok that last one might be a slight exaggeration) and made it their personal mission to ensure that I enjoyed each and every single aspect of Thanksgiving. This made me happy. It reminded me of the friendliness that is a hallmark of Nashville and more importantly of Vanderbilt students. So onto my actual plans for Thanksgiving. Vanderbilt gave us a whole week of holiday, which is actually more than most schools so I was determined to take full advantage of this. I want to say that I planned it out so that I had just the right balance of studying and fun because of the upcoming finals but one thing led to another and we ended up in North Carolina. So there was no studying done.
I spent the first 3 days here in Nashville with the friendliest family one could ever hope to meet. I got a chance to understand what really happens here in Nashville during this time of year and even experienced a bit of snow. I came to understand that it really doesn’t snow that heavily but on occasion Nashville does experience a bit of it. It lasted a day though and then went back to miserably frigid temperatures. I can tell you that I discovered how much I dislike the cold that week.
Afterwards, I chose to do a bit of travelling with my friend. I have known him for about five years so we are pretty close and we knew it was going to be a fun trip. We have many friends from high school over in Durham and that is exactly where we travelled to and spent the last few days of Thanksgiving. It was a chance to reunite with old friends and spend a few days sharing experiences from different colleges, having a good laugh and just kicking back to relax. It was more soul food than anything else and though it was short, I enjoyed every minute of it. It was the perfect way to end Thanksgiving by meeting those one is thankful for and appreciating the friendships formed. That is essentially what Thanksgiving meant for me. We came back on December 1 and were “happily” met with final assignments and exams.
For my first Thanksgiving though, I loved it.