By: Beya Likhari > Sophomore > Economics > UMBC
Remember, remember the 5th of November . . . or better yet, remember Thanksgiving. It’s the one time in the year where we give thanks for everything that we have and when college students finally get to replace their textbooks with family, friends, turkey and Black Friday shopping. It is amazing how we dedicate one whole day to being thankful and then we spend the next day raiding stores for Christmas gifts.
People camp out at Best Buy the night before, to be first in line for the crazy markdowns that are only offered to the first 50 people in the store. Kids of all ages, both the young and the young at heart, head to the mall to get good deals on clothes, shoes and accessories— pure madness.
Mall hours are extended so that customers can shop at their leisure and store employees are prepared weeks in advance for the madness that is to ensue. The high volume of shopping bags marks the beginning of the Holiday season. Jai Jani, a student at the University of Baltimore describes his Black Friday experience in front of Best Buy. He said it was an “absolutely horrendous scene of people waiting in line in 35 degree weather.”
With the chaos also comes an increased amount of family time and Christmas tree decorating. Every family has different traditions at the cusp of winter. Chirjeev Sawhney, a Virginia Commonwealth University alum and his family get together for two days and spend time together. The fun starts Thanksgiving morning, “all the cousins get together and play football in the afternoon and some of the parents watch and others are playing cards and catching up on life,” he says. “Dinner is the best because it is a mixture of a typical Thanksgiving dinner and a Persian dinner. This tradition is carried into Christmas time— minus the football.”
Nikhil Bector, an international student at Georgia Tech, describes the holiday season in India as “an Americanized version of Christmas, with Indian food. But the good part about it is that our family is always together and we eat and play poker. ”
So regardless of what part of the world you are from, or where you celebrate your holiday season, the only people that make it worthwhile are the presence of family and friends. With that said, Happy Holidays!
Image courtesy of culturemob.com
