Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday in which American families typically take a day off from the madness of everyday life and enjoy themselves. Families all across the United States come together to sit down, have a delicious meal, and reflect on all of the things they are thankful for. However, the traditions do vary from family to family, but just about everyone at the end of Thanksgiving Day simply relaxes and enjoys each other’s company. Although, Thanksgiving Day requires a lot of preparation and can be very stressful to some people.
Personally, my Thanksgiving holiday has been quite eventful and somewhat stressful. My parents did not allow me to bring my car to college my freshmen year, so when fall break finally arrived, I had to find a ride back home. Even though I live three and a half hours away from Virginia Tech, there are plenty of people from my area who also go there. Once I found a ride, we made arrangements to leave Friday afternoon. When we finally left the traffic was very heavy on the interstate, most likely due to all of the college students going home that same day. We were about forty five minutes away from where the driver lives so I called my mother to come and meet us. As we kept driving it was getting dark and the traffic was still heavy. The driver and I had just finished a conversation and even though we were both looking straight ahead we did not notice that the cars in front of us were stopped.
By then it was too late, we were going about seventy miles per hour and the cars had to be less than thirty five yards away from us. I screamed “watch out!” and the driver stomped on his breaks. In desperation to avoid hitting the other cars, he swerved over into the other lane. For a split second, I thought that we had jus avoided a huge accident, but then the driver over corrected—swerving back over into the lane with the stopped cars. We crashed into one of them and the airbags deployed. The car then continued to skid along the highway and eventually spun into a stop. We asked each other if we were okay, climbed out of the car, and then ran over to the car we collided with. The girl in the other car was a little dazed but uninjured.
Thankfully no one was seriously injured in this accident (including my beta fish that was in the front seat with me) but the two cars were tragically both left totaled. Although I had a small burn from the airbag and my neck was sore for a few days, it could have been much worse. Thankfully, we were all wearing our seat belts which probably saved our lives and prevented us from receiving anymore injuries. This accident did have me shaken up for a few days, but it was only the beginning of my eventful holiday break.
The next event I had to look forward to was getting my wisdom teeth pulled. The following Monday after the accident I had my surgery and it changed my entire Thanksgiving break. I am now on three different kinds of medication and my cheeks are swollen, making me look similar to a chipmunk. But the worst part about it is not being allowed to eat the food I want. However, I have been eating a lot of foods I am really not supposed to. The whole process of getting my wisdom teeth pulled has not been that bad. From all the stories people were telling me about getting their wisdom teeth removed, I was petrified, but it turned out to be a lot better than what I was expecting. Although it does hurt a little in the morning, after I take my medication it does not hurt anymore. And even though I am no supposed to be eating most of the food served on Thanksgiving, I had small amounts anyway.
Two days after my surgery, my parents and I traveled eight hours to New York to spend Thanksgiving with my mom’s side of the family. Although I have two older sisters, I was the only one who was forced to go even after getting into a car accident and having surgery. I do enjoy visiting my family in New York, but if I had a choice, I would have stayed home this year to recover from my surgery. It was also only my second time coming home from college, so I would have liked to spend more time with my friends back at home. But now that I am here, I am glad that I came. It was nice being able to see my family and eat Thanksgiving dinner with them.
Even though my Thanksgiving holiday was filled with unfortunate events, I still have a lot to be Thankful for. I am very thankful that no one was seriously injured in the car accident we got into on the way home. Having my wisdom teeth removed over Thanksgiving break is very regrettable, but I am thankful that everything went well during the surgery and I hope it remains that way while I recover. Finally I am very thankful for the opportunity to spend time with my family, especially my relatives who I only get the chance to see about once a year. Every Thanksgiving I reflect on all the things I have to be thankful for and it amazes me how fortunate I am. There are several people who are just as blessed as I am, but we often take it for granted how fortunate we really are. We live in a country that gives us so much freedom and many opportunities. Regrettably, we take advantage of these things, and do not appreciate them as much as we should. We should be much more thankful for the little things in life that we own because there are others out there who can only dream about having the things we have.