With over 300 million people living in the United States, many will sit down to a Thanksgiving meal with family. However all family traditions are not the same. The Feather sat down with classmates to discuss different Thanksgiving pastimes, from turkey to football.

Brooke Stobbe: How do you spend your Thanksgiving?
Rebekah Wells, ’11: “I go to my moms parents house in Reedley. We have german sausage, ham, turkey and a whole Thanksgiving meal together. My parents, grandparents, brother, uncles, aunts?the whole family’s there. Everyone helps with the meal by bringing a dish. We all sit the table and clean up together then stand around and watch football.”

Stobbe: What makes your Thanksgiving special?
Scott Jennings, ’12:“I go to my grandparents’ house and have a big meal with my family. My cousins Jacob, Sarah, Daniel and I all play Wii together. My dad’s side of the family all lives in Utah so sometimes we go and have Thanksgiving with them. When we go there, I play with all my cousins. There’s five or six of them. Otherwise we just call and talk.”

Stobbe: What are your Thanksgiving family traditions?
Ramandeep Singh, ’12: “Every year we alternate who hosts the dinner. This year It’s my uncles turn. There, me and my whole family eat together and hang out. We watch movies, play games… and every year we jump in the pool and go swimming! Although we get together a lot, Thanksgiving is still special.”

Stobbe: Although you don’t normally celebrate Thanksgiving, how do you celebrate other holidays?
Alex Nguyen, ’10: “This is my first time here in America because I live in Vietnam. But when I’m back home we celebrate the new year in January. My dad and others are off work, so we take the car and we go out to the country where everyone was born. Everyone do it?the whole country. Then we have big meal with the family all together.”

Stobbe: What do you do on Thanksgiving?
Alyssa Powell, ’10: “My whole entire family on my mom’s side, we go to my uncle’s house and have dinner. I talk with my cousins because I don’t really see them; I see them like three times a year. Me and my cousins drive golf carts together around the orange grove.”

Stobbe: What are your Thanksgiving family traditions?
Brittney Broome, ’10: “We usually go to my grandparents’ house and my mom, grandma and great grandma make the dinner. Then we watch football and play sports outside. But this year it was my little brother’s birthday, so we played Rock Band.”

Stobbe: How do you spend your Thanksgiving?
Kevin Damm, ’09: “We go to my grandma’s house where all my cousins come and we just sit around for a while then have the meal for lunch. At the table we sing hymns and say what we’re thankful for. We just hang around afterwards and for the past two we play games and Bunko. That night we have turkey sandwiches for dinner.”

Stobbe: What traditions occur on Thanksgiving in your family?
Kayla Dones, ’10: “We go to Stockton to visit my grandma every year. We always eat a lot of food. On the table, we place little name tags at each place and go around the table saying what we’re thankful for. Then we pray a big Thanksgiving prayer and dig in! After we’re done eating we eat my grandma’s homemade whipped cream that’s piled onto our pumpkin pie. I go outside and played baseball with my cousin, Charles, and my little brother, Austin.”

While at Christmas or Easter holiday focus can stay on presents or egg hunts, Thanksgiving maintains emphasis on spending time with family, as well as decadent food.