Christmas music and holiday sales start earlier every year, and Thanksgiving seems to get lost behind Christmas music and gifts. Although retailers use phrases like “Thanksgifting” to promote sales, BYU students haven’t forgotten the family traditions that make their Thanksgiving holiday special.
“We have lots of little kids in our family, so we always get Reese’s, candy corns and other chocolates, and we make little turkeys with chocolate frosting. For a little early Christmas treat, we make candy sleighs, and we put the turkeys on them, and it’s super fun.” — Abbi Chadwick, Human development, Ogden
“My family plays a lot of games together. My dad’s a computer geek, so we have computers set up, and we computer play games, board games and card games.” — Alex Anderson, Exercise science, American Fork
“The all-nighter we pull after Thanksgiving. We stay up until twelve, and then we hit the stores.” — Alyssa Ashton, Neuroscience, Farmington
“My family gets together every other year, depending on which side’s turn it is, and so it’s the one time I get to see all of my cousins from all over.” — Blake Tanner, Technology and engineering education, Highland, California
“Since it’s really cold here, my family goes to visit my extended family down in southern Utah, and we have a family reunion. Then I usually go with my siblings and cousins to Zion’s National Park, and we go canyoneering.” — Caleb Reidhead, Mechanical engineering, Springville
“Going to my uncle and aunt’s house. We go there every other year, and the whole LeSueur family gets together to do that. Or sometimes my mom doesn’t feel like cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner, so we go to Village Inn.” — Candice LeSueur, Human development, Mesa, Arizona
“Turkeybowl.” — Carl Spencer, Sociology, Puyallup, Washington
“We draw a big maze on the table.” — John Fuller, Mechanical engineering, Apache Junction, Arizona
“My family always gets together with my cousins, and then we like to do this thing where we set up a tree on the wall. We then write things we are thankful for on leaves, and we stick them on the wall.” — Lisa Luke, Microbiology, Boise, Idaho
