Thanksgiving 2016 was my first Thanksgiving that I wasn’t with my parents. To my surprise, my best friend and I ended up having a really nice Thanksgiving – big meal and all. We had six different dishes and it all tasted surprisingly good. Although everything turned out well it wasn’t quite as put together and planned as the usual family Thanksgiving is. We both woke up around noon, we hadn’t bought any food, we had just gotten home from a trip to Portland two days prior, and we weren’t completely sure what we even wanted to make. So here are a few things I learned after Thursday:

1. It Takes Some Planning

Before the day of Thanksgiving, you should have already planned a few things out. When do you want the food to be ready? When do certain dishes need to be started? What food do you want to eat? There are a few others, but the gist is you should be able to wake up on Thanksgiving and have a pretty good idea of what will be going on that day—because when you wake up at noon and haven’t even gone to buy the food you need… there are no plans there.

2. It Takes Practice

Putting together a meal, whether it be a nice meal for two or a blowout ordeal that includes the whole family, cooking takes practice. And I don’t mean practice your cooking skills (though they might need practice too), what I mean is practice putting together a meal, i.e. having all of the dishes ready at a similar time so you don’t end up with one dish ready an hour before everything else and so by the time it’s dinner time it’s cold. I never thought this was that hard until I started cooking for myself… over a year living away from my parents and I’m still struggling.

3. You Can't Sleep Until Noon

Admittedly, this may not be that bad if you have planned it all out and if you started cooking at noon you would be done by 4. However, in my case noon was when I decided to get out of bed to start deciding what was going to be happening for the rest of the day. I now remember why my family usually woke up around nine A.M. or so on Thanksgiving – cooking a lot of dishes takes some time.

4. Even Just Having Thanksgiving With One Other Person Is Worth It

I have a feeling that in the future there could be a chance when I don’t get to spend time with any family nor friends on Thanksgiving, and that’s OK. But it’s also OK if you just have one friend. Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful, whether it be spending time with family, friends, or even reflecting on what you are thankful for if you are ever alone on Thanksgiving – you can still be thankful.

5. FaceTimeing/Calling Family Is A Must

I probably just talked to my family over FaceTime for less than 10 minutes, but it was still nice to hear about what they had for their Thanksgiving dinner and to see everyone looking full and happy. Even if you aren’t that close with your family, if you are thankful for them or anything they’ve done, at least text them a “Happy Thanksgiving."

I personally call my first Thanksgiving without my parents a success. I definitely felt like a semi-adult when I was able to sit down and enjoy the meal because I pulled it off… It wasn’t perfect, but what is? I had a good time and I ate good food - and that’s good enough for me.