Students Celebrate Thanksgiving With Class parties

SMIC-I celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday on November 26 with classroom parties.
The tradition of Thanksgiving holiday has been continued for nearly four hundred years since the early seventeenth century. In current days, the tradition of Thanksgiving day spread across the world. Thus, even though the Thanksgiving festival was originated in western culture, students in Shanghai SMIC-I also got a chance to celebrate this festival.
Each grade held their own parties during lunchtime that provided students and teachers with food, drinks, and music. For high school students, this was the first time in the year that the three homeroom classes celebrated together. Thus, the process of setting up the event was very complicated. Katherine Liu (11A), one of the students who helped with arranging the Thanksgiving party in eleventh grade expressed, “At first we formed a group in each homeroom to discuss the Thanksgiving party. We then made decisions on what food could be ordered using the certain amount of money we want to spend. We also met some problems later when the chickens we ordered became unavailable, so we tried to find and contact other stores.” The setting up of class parties was difficulties and time consuming, but on the day of the celebration most students thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Candy Park (12B) stated that the “Thanksgiving party is worth being carried on in the future.” Elaine Tang (11C) also expressed, “Besides the short timing of the Thanksgiving party, the food provided was [very] delicious. I also like the combination of three classes together.”

Middle school also held their own Thanksgiving party but in a slightly different way. Most the students in each middle school homeroom brought their own home-cooked food and had a potluck party. Most of the students contributed to the preparation of their class parties, effectively making Thanksgiving a day of sharing.
Even though the Thanksgiving festival has always been a western tradition, students in SMIC-I, through the Thanksgiving parties, were also given the opportunities to remember this important festival and the need to give thanks to people who love them. Moreover, the celebration of Thanksgiving 2018 in SMIC-I promoted collaboration between classes and brought joy to students.

Featured Image – Thanksgiving party Photo Courtesy of Politico Magazine

by Jaclyn Li