Raquel Vaughn-

Thanksgiving is coming up and, in my opinion, it’s the best time of the year. It’s the one time of the year that I get to see most of my family for what we like to call “Epic Thanksgiving.” As I’m sure others do too, one of the traditions we practice is sharing what we are thankful for before digging into the dinner our moms and aunts spent days laboring to make. Whether the answer is family, friends, pets, or the latest video game that came out, my cousins and I always have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving night. 

But the season of thanks does not stop with dinner. Every year, my aunt sets up a small Christmas tree decorated in Fall aesthetics by the entryway of her home. She hands out small wooden leaf ornaments that she probably got from Hobby Lobby and an array of colored permanent markers to all of my cousins and siblings. The craft is to write things you are thankful for, and then you hang it up on the tree. You’ve seen a Christmas tree, but have you ever heard of a Thanksgiving tree? Being that I am me, I always have a million things to be thankful for. I usually ask my aunt for not one leaf, but anywhere between five and ten of them. I write down my family, my friends, my roommate’s name, loved ones who have passed, my job, my faith, and so on. Like I said, I could curate a 1,000-word list of things I’m thankful for and that would be my article for the week. But this is not one of those articles because this year there are things to not be thankful for. 

You can not be thankful for this year being an election year. How am I supposed to eat my green bean casserole in peace knowing that at any moment someone could reference the election resulting in a full-blown debate at the dinner table? There are few instances where I wish my family would do nothing but ask me about my nearly nonexistent love life, yet election year’s Thanksgiving is one of them. 

You also cannot be thankful for the fact that this summer was recorded as the hottest year yet. With all the wildfires, I heard that areas in Greece were forced to be evacuated. It’s news like this that makes me thankful that I live in North America with ferocious winters. Every year, I remember how much I hate walking across campus in negative-degree weather —and don’t even get me started about driving in those snow storms. But thank goodness for freezing weather, because I hate the heat. But that’s not what this article is about. It’s about what we can be unthankful for.

You can be unthankful for the fact that we lost so many legends in 2024. We’re thankful for them, sure, but not for the fact that they were taken away from us so soon or so suddenly. Starting with Liam Payne, one of the industry’s lovable and multi-talented princes. One Direction was a staple experience for every middle school girl back in the day. And to every middle school girl during that time, there’s another thing you can be “not thankful” for: getting to say “back in the day.” And to other legends we lost—Maggie Smith, Toby Keith, and Carl Weathers—we’re not thankful you’re gone, but we’re thankful you lived. 

Switching gears, there’s another thing that we can all be unthankful for. No matter how old you are, the roads you’ve walked, or the beliefs you believe, we can all collectively agree that Jake Paul beating Mike Tyson on Friday, November 15th at approximately 10:30 p.m. is something we should all not be thankful for. Mike Tyson, one of the greatest boxers of all time, was shown up by a former YouTube “bad boy” who can’t take anything in his life seriously. We were all expecting a different turnout, but now Jake Paul for the rest of his living legacy can say that he beat “the Baddest Man on the Planet.” We should’ve known, considering the live stream of the fight was a free event…and not even that great either.

Don’t forget this season that there are many things to be grateful for; the sun, the earth, family, and friends. But there is also a very true reality where we should be ungrateful for things. I’m unthankful for that one coffee table I always stub my toe on. I’m unthankful for the weird unrhythmic noise that my fan makes at night…and no matter how or where I hit it, the noise doesn’t stop. I’m unthankful for that one sidewalk on campus between Olin and IC because it leads to nowhere but a fork in the road (I just want to walk straight! Is that so hard?). Giving thanks is good practice, but sometimes a coffee table and a sidewalk need a good vulgar gesture to get your feelings out.