On Thursday, November 22, the people of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram took a break from their day-to-day “someone come get Chipotle with me” tweets and not-so-professionally Instagrammed pictures of Starbucks’ holiday red cups to meaningfully turn their attention towards the most important lunch/dinner combo meal of the year. This begs the question, for what are the
students of Harriton thankful?

IB assessment calendars, the hurrication at the beginning of November, pumpkin spice lattes, and the Harriton Banner, of course! Beneath all of the intended-to-be-witty remarks, everyone is probably just thankful for their friends and family. But let’s focus on some highlights of the holiday. Most NJTransit and Amtrak trains running in the North Jersey and greater New York area shut down for a great portion of Wednesday evening and Thursday during the day.

While news reports claimed that the delays were caused by continuation of relief efforts for Hurricane Sandy, it was later found that the mother of the head dispatcher for New York Penn Station had won her town’s local pie-making contest. Transit was reportedly suspended to facilitate a daylong pie-induced coma.

Thanksgiving lesson number one: Pumpkin pie takes priority over holiday travel.

After EpicMealTime introduced their new “Mastering the Art of College Cooking” earlier this fall, a group of Penn State students were consumed by its caloric goodness. They took holiday overindulgence to a new extreme by staying at school for Thanksgiving break, becoming semi-homemade domestic goddesses and putting an entire feast on top of a large pizza.

Generic Sophomore Male stepped forward and defended his choice to spend the holiday at school, saying, “Our pizza has everything on it: some pie, some turkey, some gravy drizzled”. Writers at the Banner hope that their Thanksgiving was as “ill” as planned and that their doctored Domino’s pizza (prepared days in advance) was everything they had dreamed it would be.

Thanksgiving lesson number two: The right thing to do is probably ditch your friends and pizza for a trip back home and some non-cardiac-arrest-inducing food.

Many were left in a sleepy, finger-licking daze on their couches after dinner, complaining about their overdue “food babies” and wanting their annoying step-uncle (twice removed by marriage, whatever that means) to stop talking about his newest homemade Chia pet. This grumpiness and exhaustion was most likely a result of the absurd amounts of tryptophan consumed.

Thanksgiving lesson number three: Inundating teachers with tryptophan would have been smarter than a rumored senior prank involving laxatives and cakes.

In the end, it is not all about winning in snapping the wish bone with your annoying cousin or knowing what to say to aggravate just about any family member at the table; it is about making sure you are too full at the end to move and that the NHS was able to announce its way to a successful food drive. Maybe next year you should stay home alone with your family and stick to what Thanksgiving was originally all about – invite your neighbors over for a feast, and kill them!