I record the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year, because, really, I’m not going to wake up to watch it live. Still, I find myself fast-forwarding through most of the balloons and floats, because they are either old-fashioned or just plain boring.

As Thanksgiving approaches, the Student Life editorial board lists what they are thankful for this holiday season.

Devote as much energy to developing Buddha-like restraint as you would to sourcing Four Lokos before they become illegal.

As Thanksgiving approaches, the Student Life editorial board lists what they are thankful for this holiday season.

Say you find yourself stuck in St. Louis over Thanksgiving Break. There will be no turkey, mashed potatoes or pumpkin pie and the weekend is shaping up to be just like any other: writing papers, catching up on work and enjoying some time outside of the library.

Oh, yeah! It’s that time of the year. Christmas ads start to taunt you through the television screen. Hanukkah ads don’t exist. Nor do those for anything else really. The generic “Happy Holidays” reigns supreme. Turkeys start gobbling knowing that their short and fairly meaningless lives are going to end in the culmination of their entire purpose: to feed an entire nation on one day. Poor, poor turkeys.

It’s that time of year again—red leaves crunching under your shoes, the smell of cider in the air, football on TV, and college students all over the country getting dumped. That’s right kids—it’s almost Thanksgiving break, and that means only one thing: It’s Turkey Drop season.

By now you will have seen that this week is Homelessness Awareness Week, operated by the Student Alliance Against Poverty.

Thanksgiving and the subsequent holiday season are just around the corner, and in the chaos of midterms, papers and impending travel plans, most of us on campus are anxiously counting down the days until we can escape home. School and campus life are stressful, and I know I certainly forget at times to be grateful for all that I have, but with less than two weeks before Thanksgiving, now seems like the perfect time to appreciate the blessings most of us usually take for granted.

I encountered a lot of people this Thanksgiving break who said that I was young, that I had the luxury of screwing around for a few years, that what I do for a job now doesn’t have to be the only thing I ever do. I told those people, “You have no idea.” Because they didn’t. They were adults.