“Family Time” is the fourth of seven Thanksgiving articles received in fall of 2023 from Wayne High School students. Five of them were published in The Byway’s most recent November paper. All will be featured online.
Thanksgiving is such a fun time to get together with my family and catch up on everyone’s busy lives and hang out for a couple of days. My family traditions are probably pretty similar to most but I still enjoy them. My family likes to play games and eat until we can’t anymore.
On the morning of Thanksgiving, we go load up in the truck to either go hunting ducks or rabbits. Once we were all loaded in the vehicles, we headed up the mountain or to some ponds to get ducks. We like to go all together so that some of the time half the people go and scare the ducks off the pond while the rest of us are ready to shoot. If we get some ducks, we will take the feathers off, and my uncle will get them ready to eat later that day.
After having fun hunting, we go back and visit with family. The little kids go into the playroom so that the adults can talk without it being too loud with all 23 grandkids running around. Everyone just sits around and talks until it is time to start to make all the food. Once the food is done, we start gathering to get our plates. There are always so many options because my mom’s side of the family is so big. There are salads, Jello, rolls, potatoes, and much more including dessert.
We visit for about another hour until we can decide on a game to play or we will watch some football. We mainly will play card games and sometimes go outside to play a great game of kickball or we will sit and cheer for the Kansas City Chiefs to win some football. We have all grown up to like football, so it is fun to get together and root the team we all enjoy watching. Some of the time when we are playing games it can get a little heated between all the competitive siblings that are there, but it is always a great time to have fun and laugh.
Once the game is over, we go out to scout for a Christmas tree or sometimes even a late elk tag if someone has one. Most of the time it is just my family and my grandparents because the rest of my extended families don’t like to get a real tree in their house. It’s fun to load up in the truck with our snow gear on and hope to see some snow we can play in while we look for a tree. When we get back, we have hot chocolate and sit by the fire to warm up.
– by Lacey Brown (10th) Wayne High School
Feature image courtesy of Riley J. (1st) Escalante.
Sit in for more fun Thankgiving traditions in “Old Ways” by Ayla Deakin.