Do I really need Thanksgiving anymore?

Thanksgiving is like the perfect holiday: it creates a weekend that’s not too short, not too long; it always lands when people have cash on hand, it’s there right when you need it – when the fourth quarter of the year is getting hectic–, and you get to eat all you want. What more could you ask from a holiday? Well, there’s the fact that you can’t always enjoy it, like when you have a test on the following Monday.

© Rick Griffin 2009.

For the past few years I have been “celebrating” Thanksgiving on a date that’s intentionally off. The fact is, I don’t consider a day off to be a day off anymore if I have to use it to study for a test or get work done: it becomes a regular weekday where that day’s class happens to have been cancelled. The last two years I’ve been celebrating Thanksgiving a couple of weeks early: right when I finish my first round of tests, and before the second round can begin. Last year I went so far as to actually stuff a chicken, serve it to my family, and read out a lengthy grace. (The previous years I simply slept in late and watched TV for a couple of days, rather than worry about the tests that were about to come as I usually do.)

But last week changes things.

Last week I had no class on Monday (due to Columbus Day), nor on Tuesday (my schedule just happens to be like that.) I did have class on Wednesday, but the teacher of my Thursday class was unable to come, and the campus was, for all practical purposes, closed on Friday due to a brownout. I didn’t really use those extra days for any academic work (a fact which is already beating down on me), so I’ve basically had two Thanksgiving-like weekends already!

My second round of tests this year is quite a while after Thanksgiving, so I was thinking I could actually celebrate it on the right day for once, but I can’t help but thinking it would now be criminally irresponsible to do so.