Some say that Christmas is the best holiday, but I look forward to Thanksgiving every year. Thanksgiving is a time where family near and far come together to eat and to talk about life.
In the South, it’s common tradition for families to meet at the grandparent’s or oldest sibling’s home. All the women and young girls that are old enough to use a knife head to the kitchen. This is the moment when girls get to learn all the family recipes and secret seasonings. Everyone is assigned a job depending on age and how hard the task is. The younger girls are usually assigned to cutting vegetables and the oldest are assigned to doing something everyone knows that you are good at. 
The men of the family are usually in the living room glued to the football game on TV, while the younger guys are in either the front or backyard actually playing the sport. The guys are constantly trying to come in the kitchen and taste test things and they only get in the way. Thanksgiving is also usually the time that family members bring over their significant other–they’re usually seriously thinking about taking their relationship to the next level. This is always fun for the other family members, not only to get to know this potential new family member, but also to see all the aunts and uncles grill the two about love and marriage.
The biggest thing about Thanksgiving is the food. If Southerners cannot do anything else, they can cook. They love to get in the kitchen and show off their cooking skills. Thanksgiving is the time to get down right dirty in the kitchen. In the South, there is always more than one type of food. We don’t just have rice we have white, brown, and yellow rice. We’ll have baked mac & cheese and regular mac & cheese, collard greens with turkey bacon and some with out, yams with marshmallows, and some without. Southerners like to have options. Then there are desserts. One thing that I guarantee is that the desserts are not store brought. Everything is homemade–the cakes, pies, and the cupcakes, as well as any other dessert that someone decides to make and bring to add to the feast.
My favorite part about Thanksgiving is when family is all around, saying what they’re thankful for, and when the older generation is telling stories about when they were kids. I love to hear stories about my mom and her siblings as kids, because they always try to pretend like they were the perfect kid. This time is also when we find out about different family history. It was Thanksgiving when I found out my great-grandmother was a Native American, and when I found out my uncles played a small part in the Black Panthers movement, or that fact that my grandmother walked with Martin Luther King in Washington. This is a time to share unknown facts about the family history, and time to share and past down wisdom to the newer generation.