Community Conversations
Isha Patel (Teen)
One of my favorite traditions during the holiday season is Friendsgiving. Every November, my friends and I come together to celebrate gratitude, friendship, and enjoy great food. Friendsgiving is very laid-back and personal, and each person brings a dish to share. It’s a wonderful tradition that reminds of how lucky I am to not only have an amazing family, but also to have a circle of friends who feel like family.
Pritha Anand (Teen)
My favourite holiday tradition is celebrating with friends and family. No matter what we are celebrating or where we are meeting, having fun with friends and family is the most amazing part of the holidays. Within my friend groups, it is tradition to meet and have multiple parties for every single event and birthday during the holiday season. We meet for Diwali, thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and all the birthdays in between, having fun and celebrating together. Sometimes we meet just for the sake of having fun together. I love this because it has created a giant community of family and friends that I love and cherish, people I can always rely on to have my back. I think that no matter what is going on in our lives, the tradition of meeting friends and family to have fun regardless of holidays or not is a gift. In a world where technology is making it easier to reach out, yet simultaneously isolating us, I cherish the opportunity to meet my loved ones in person, and make happy memories with them.
Sadhana Kyathppala & Raj Kyathppala
Thanksgiving is my all time favorite holiday, even a little more than Diwali! That it has no religious connotation, no presents or other commercial aspect, and that we all get the 2 days off to make it a 4-day weekend make it the perfect time for family get together. Typically our whole family gathers at our place to reconnect, recap the year we are just completing and bounce ideas for the coming year. The basement is lined up like a youth hostel, with camp cots and sleeping bags in the early days, and air mattresses now. The nephews and niece have young children now and they love doing sleepover with us. With everyone (about 26 including the little kids) being together under the same roof for a few days allows for all sorts of topics to be discussed, and all sorts of opportunities to share interests. This year we even introduced Bollywood movies and dance to the little ones.
In the early days in this country, many in our family did not particularly care for the taste of turkey. So my SIL and I decided to carve out our own tradition. Everyone loved Chinese food, so it felt very appropriate for this large Indian family, to celebrate the American Thanksgiving festival with Chinese food! But when I heard that my nephew “lied” to his kindergarten teacher that he had turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing for Thanksgiving, we felt we needed to really follow the tradition. However, we wanted to use this opportunity to expose our children to our Indian roots as well. Thus began our tradition of the time-honored American items with Turkey and its accompaniments, and the epitome of South Indian festival food – HoLige (Puran Poli) and its accompaniments! This “weird” combination of East and West on the table have sparked so many conversations about our childhoods in India, other Indian festivals and their traditions to the point where next year, we are considering celebrating Thanksgiving in Bangalore so that our families there can also experience this idea of coming together for the sole purpose of togetherness and giving thanks!