While some people may view staying in Provo for Thanksgiving as a negative experience, others say it does not have to be.
Sined Yepez, a freshman from Miami, Fla., will not be able to return home for Thanksgiving. She hopes to be able to take a road trip with her cousin to Las Vegas, Nev., but if the plan fails, she may have a simple chicken dinner with her friends.
“Going to Miami would just be almost impossible,” Yepez said. “As long as you surround yourself with people you have a fun time with, you can still feel the spirit of Thanksgiving.”
Elizabeth Kerr, from Paso Robels, Calif., studying pre-nursing, does not have solid plans for Thanksgiving yet. However, Kerr has heard of freshmen using a ping pong table as a Thanksgiving dinner table. If Kerr is stranded in Provo for Thanksgiving, she will mimic this idea.
“We’d have mismatched plates,” Kerr said. “Maybe we’d get a turkey if everyone helped out.”
Kerr’s brother, who attends BYU –Hawaii, has not returned home for Thanksgiving multiple times due to the cost of flying, but she said her brother still enjoys himself.
“My brother just tries to keep the best attitude that he can,” Kerr said. “I think the people that stay here can still make it fun.”
Kat Bennett, a senior from Draper, has extended invitations to friends and roommates who are stranded in Provo to go home with her. She said inviting people home for Thanksgiving has not always been the best experience, particularly when she invited her freshman-year roommates home with her.
“It was a little difficult because my family is really active and they were college students on break,” Bennett said. “It was tough to balance entertaining them and spending time with my family.”
Despite her experience, Bennett still recommends letting people know if they have nowhere to go for Thanksgiving.
“Don’t be afraid to let people know that you’re going to be stuck,” Bennett said. “Sometimes I don’t know until afterwards that people had nowhere to go, and you could have come with me if I knew far enough in advance.”
Candace Chauncey, a sophomore majoring in exercise and wellness, proposed the idea that people who are stranded talk to their bishops to find others who are stuck in Provo.
“There are a handful of kids in your ward who aren’t going out of Provo, so you can stick together,” Chauncey said.
Chantel Spretz, a senior from Huntsville, Texas, once went to her bishop’s house for Thanksgiving.
“It was good, but it wasn’t family,” Spretz said. “It was different.”
Spretz also said to tell friends to bring back leftovers from their Thanksgiving dinners to share.
Spencer Steel, a computer engineering major from Albuquerque, N.M., is not having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. His grandmother is hosting Thanksgiving dinner at an Italian restaurant in Salt Lake City. Steel’s family, from New Mexico, will be joining him in Salt Lake City, but he said he sympathizes with those who are not able to be with family.
“If they are just hanging out here and don’t have any plans, I feel bad,” Steel said.
Steel served his mission in Las Vegas, Nev., and said students could take a road trip there for fun.
“Find all of the other people (who) can’t go anywhere, and I would say go on a road trip to Vegas to do appropriate things like watch the fountains or the Blue Man Group,” Steel said. “There’s a temple there too.”
Jin Lee, 23, from Seoul, Korea, will not be returning home for Thanksgiving. However, Lee said it is not a huge disappointment to him because Korea celebrates Thanksgiving in September.
“It’s just another holiday for me,” Lee said. “It’s a time to get together to get food.”
