Jack Davis: The best traditional Thanksgiving food is the dinner roll. There is nothing better than warm and fluffy bread coming out of the oven on Thanksgiving Day. I also like dipping it in the mashed potatoes.
Gentry Keener: Thanksgiving dinner should not be at 2 p.m. It makes no sense. I don’t want to eat a five-course meal in the middle of the day. It just throws me off for the entire day. It makes way more sense to eat at 5 or 6 p.m. That way you can eat breakfast and not be hungry at 10 p.m. because you haven’t eaten in 8 hours.
Natalie Fitzgibbons: Thanksgiving food is overrated. The traditional Thanksgiving food doesn’t make Thanksgiving, it’s who you spend it with. Yes, the origin of Thanksgiving is questionable to say the least, but it does give us an opportunity to appreciate the people and things in life we are — or at least should be — thankful for.
Joey Sills: I really thought I wouldn’t be alone in saying this, but nine times out of 10, turkey is total garbage. The one time that it’s actually good, it’s basically just a passable dish I would never choose to eat of my own volition. It’s the worst lunch meat, and it’s the worst dish to situate an entire feast around. I’ll eat it when the time comes around, because I love my family and I’m big and greedy, but I’d much rather have ham or something similar.
Danny William: People who say there are no good Thanksgiving songs have clearly never heard Arlo Guthrie’s 18-minute masterpiece “Alice’s Restaurant.” I listen to it annually on Thanksgiving, and it hasn’t gotten old yet. You don’t know true Thanksgiving spirit until you’re in a room full of people singing the chorus.
Leila Faraday: Love or hate your hometown and the people there, I think there is something incredible about wallowing in the romanticization of going home for the holidays. Play all the emotional music, sit in your high school parking lot and confront the ghosts of your past this Thanksgiving.
Isabella Vesperini: I don’t understand why so many people watch football on Thanksgiving. What connection is there between Thanksgiving and football? If you’re going to watch TV on Thanksgiving, watch something more worthwhile, like a holiday movie or your favorite TV show, even the parade if you want. But football? People watch football ALL THE TIME. Can't we give football a break for one singular day?
Jared Quigg: I’m stealing my best friend’s take, but because I agree with her it’s fine. Thanksgiving is a great holiday and means something different in the modern day than it originally did. You should learn the history of Thanksgiving and the atrocities committed against the Indigenous people of this country. I think, however, you can do that and still enjoy a huge meal with your family and watch football after. (We watch football, Isabella, because it’s just SO MUCH FUN, Jan!)
Prakriti Khurana: Mashed potatoes are the best thanksgiving food ever. It is also available in a lot of flavors and is definitely the most essential food in a Thanksgiving meal.
Jacob Lubarsky: The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday: the most disgusting, annual depiction of humanity. While I am not nearly as critical of the capitalist system as some of my fellow opinion writers, it is abhorrent to hear about humans trampling each other solely for the sake of getting a discounted TV that is inadvertently perpetrated by the capitalist system. It is one of the most shameful depictions of modern-day humanity this world has to offer. When I see people lined up at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night in front of a Best Buy in a strip mall, I too begin to wonder if we should just turn to communism.
Faith Badgley: Green bean casserole is one of the best Thanksgiving foods. While it doesn’t look all that appetizing, it's so delicious. If you like sweet potatoes with marshmallows and not green bean casserole, get your taste buds checked out.
