A single lady on Thanksgiving
Photo Credit: Monestra productions/Pexel
Alternative Thanksgiving Plans
Thanksgiving Can Be a Lot More
Written by: Mary-Jane Daser
If you ever find yourself alone on Thanksgiving, you should make the most of it and search out fun experiences to have on your own instead of wishing you were surrounded by family and friends.
Thanksgiving is a day set aside to give thanks, and in the United States, it’s a national holiday, always celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. This holiday is a deliberate attempt to make everyone pause, count their blessings, and give thanks.
During Thanksgiving, families and friends across the nation sit together and feast. It’s a very important time to get together, and people use the holidays to travel from wherever they reside to join their family and friends and share laughter, food, joy, and make lasting memories.
However, not everyone is fortunate to have many family members with whom they can share Thanksgiving. Some people have to spend it alone or with a few friends. If this is you this year, you may be tempted to feel less fortunate or find it difficult to count your blessings but look at it this way. You don’t have to pretend to be happy about sharing the table with a family member you’ve been avoiding for months, and you also don’t have to be a part of family bickering, teasing, and recalling old wounds and tales of woes! You have your schedule and can make the most of this time alone or with your friends.
If all you intend to do this long Thanksgiving weekend is mope around your laundry, eat take-out, and watch old movies, you’re likely to feel down—unless that’s your idea of a good time, then have at it! But let’s be truthful, if this is going to be the sum of your whole weekend, why not make it better for this Thanksgiving? Here are some fun ways to create memories for yourself and your friends this Thanksgiving.
Five Fun Things You Can Do for Thanksgiving
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Volunteer
You’ve been meaning to get involved in charity and do a little bit of good within your community. You see all the homeless people on your way to work each day, and there’s a deep desire to help, but you haven’t yet figured out how to get involved. You’re in luck because Thanksgiving weekend is the best time to get involved.
Local shelters, churches, and food pantries recognize that many people like you are also spending their Thanksgiving alone, or simply want to volunteer, and make food available. Find out how you can get involved and make plans to volunteer, serve, or assist in any way you can. While there, share a smile, and be genuinely interested in people’s stories. By the time your fellowship with these strangers is over, you will have learned something new and fascinating about someone and created a new memory—not alone, but with people to whom you owe no obligations—and will have opened your eyes to see that there is beauty in the world and we are not as worse off as we think we are.
Tick Something Off Your List
All year, you’ve been busy with work, friends, and all your roles and responsibilities and have had no time for yourself. Your schedule is tight, and there’s hardly any time outside work to do even one of the fun things you have written on your list. Why not use the Thanksgiving weekend to tick one of them off your list?
Go sky diving, watch that movie you’ve been saving, or go scuba diving. Get yourself that tattoo, travel to your dream country, learn how to use the chopsticks, or binge-watch that series you’ve been eyeing. The weekend is all yours!
Use Your Social Media Network
You’ll be surprised at the number of people who are alone on Thanksgiving day and need to do something, just like you. Create a form, and ask your online friends to fill it out if they want to participate in a Thanksgiving cooking contest.
Choose a food you love, and learn to cook it. Then on Thanksgiving day, jump on a video call and watch each other prepare meals, share stories, and have a good laugh about your different Thanksgiving traditions and experiences. You can increase the fun by putting a timer on the cooking, making it a competition, and having your online friends do this with you. In the end, you would have gotten to know your social media following a little better and created a new experience.
Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com/pexels
Make That All Girls/All Boys Trip from Group Text to Reality
You’re probably one of those people who want to take a vacation and have friends who share the same sentiment as you. You’ve all created a group text where all the plans have been made and the money is saved for the trip. The destination has been chosen, and all the fun activities for that trip have also been agreed upon. The only constraint is time. Everyone is busy and work leave keeps clashing. How about the Thanksgiving weekend? Thanksgiving is the best time to take that trip off virtual planning and make it a reality!
Host Your Friends to a Full-Course Meal
Food is a universal language, and Thanksgiving embodies this with its feast tradition. However, we are in an era where fast food and quick meals are the order of the day. Not everyone wants to take the time to cook, and some people don’t have as much time to cook. Home-cooked meals are becoming a big deal, and having a hearty full-course meal in any restaurant may cost an arm and a leg.
Fortunately, many food blogs specialize in home-cooked meals that require time, slow cooking, flavor build-ups, thoughtfulness, and the finest ingredients you can find. Search out these blogs, select a meal, ask your friends about their allergies to know what to avoid, and invite them over for Thanksgiving. Treat them to a home-cooked meal and watch how they come alive with the satisfaction of giving them a treat they will never forget.
It’s okay to not want to do Thanksgiving alone, as it’s a season when almost everyone is coupled up or spending time with family. But you can make the most of your time alone and away from family to do those things you want to do, either on your own or with friends. So go out there and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
