Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice and New Year’s, but never Happy Thanksgiving. 

Do you even know why we celebrate Thanksgiving or what the point is? Probably not. All everyone knows is that you sit at the table and eat a massive amount of food with your family. 

First things first, do we even know the actual date of the first Thanksgiving? We just celebrate it on the last Thursday of the month. At least Christmas and New Year’s have a specific date of the year. 

Most people believe that we celebrate Thanksgiving with a large feast because, when Columbus came to the U.S., we had a big feast with the Native Americans to celebrate the newly discovered land and peace with the Natives. 

But did the Americans not kick the Native Americans off of their land, killing most of their population, bringing them foreign diseases, and force them onto reservations just a few short years later? Just a thought. 

Besides the horrific history of Thanksgiving, it is so expensive! I learned this year as I am hosting my first Friendsgiving, where I will be doing all of the cooking (because I don’t trust anyone else) for about 15 people. 

Cooking for that many people requires a lot of food, with one Sam’s club trip and at least two trips to Fry’s and whatever last-minute things I need to grab, I’m looking at a minimum of $300. So make sure you thank your family members who do the cooking this year! 

It cost so much money to make a turkey that I honestly do not like! Standard Thanksgiving meals aren’t even that good. Like, can’t we just all order pizza and call it a day? Not only is it expensive but it is stressful. Usually, my mom is the one stressing out running around for a whole week and I’m usually the one getting yelled at and I usually just let my mom take her stress out on me. 

But this year, I understand her pain. My Friendsgiving dinner is about a week away and I’m already stressed out. I took off work for Friday evening, but I forgot that I have school, I mean it is on a Friday! 

I’ve planned to do a lot of prep-work the night before and multitask throughout the day so that we were not eating dinner at 9 p.m. There is so much stress and so much money, is it even worth it? 

Most years I spend Thanksgiving Day with my family, who I can barely stand for 30 minutes. There is always the pinching of the cheeks and telling me where I should go to college and what I should do for a living, and don’t get me started on the political arguments. Like sure Aunt Theresa, I’ll see you on Easter okay?