Halloween is over, and November has begun. While many like to skip November entirely and head straight to Christmas, for some, Thanksgiving is just as important. Families gather together around a dining room table for a feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing. Thanksgiving Day football games play on the TV, and, depending on where you are, snow is falling outside. It’s not uncommon for families to develop their own customs as a step away from tradition. SHG families hold some strange ones.
Freshman Nate Willard’s family doesn’t spend their day indoors. “We go chicken chasing.” Willard’s family goes out to a farm, where they can chase chickens around a pen and try to catch them. “It’s actually really fun. Sometimes it takes a while to catch one and sometimes it only takes a few seconds. It really just depends on the chicken.”
Sophomore Hannah Ketchum’s tradition takes a more sentimental turn. “Every time someone in my family dies, we make a lifesize cardboard cutout of them.” The cutouts are taken to Ketchum’s grandmother’s house and stored there. “Every Thanksgiving, or any family gathering really, we stand up those cutouts to remember [the deceased family members].”
Junior Evan Ihlenfeldt’s family plays a game. “We play a super long game of Monopoly.” A typical game of Monopoly takes about two hours, which can seem like a long time. The Ihlenfeldts, however, are dedicated to the game. “One time, we played for seven hours. We were at my grandma’s house from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.”
Senior Izzy Garcia’s Thanksgiving gets everyone in the mood for Christmas. “Every year after eating, we decorate the Christmas tree.” That sounds fairly harmless, until cannons get involved. “We take potato cannons and shoot the decorations onto the tree. We put the tinsel, for example, in the cannon and shoot it up into the tree.”
And thus, as Thanksgiving ends, Christmas has begun.
Campus Crier Online 