Some families, like KUNR Youth Media reporter Isabella Wolf’s family, are making the difficult decision to stay home this Thanksgiving. In this audio diary, Wolf shares the family traditions that she’ll miss this year and what the holiday means to her.
I wanted to talk about Thanksgiving, which is personally one of my favorite holidays. And obviously, my holiday plans have not gone on the way I expected this year, which has been rough because Thanksgiving means a lot to me.
I just feel like it gets kind of a bad rap as far as holidays go. I feel like people look at Thanksgiving as like, “Yeah, we’re going to eat a bunch of food and avoid talking politics with our distant relatives.” I feel like Thanksgiving to me is all about seeing the people who you love, seeing your family, and coming together to give thanks and enjoy each other’s company.
Thanksgiving is a really big deal on my mom’s side of the family. Normally, we would drive up to Texas in the hill country to see my mom’s family for Thanksgiving. We decided not to go this year, which was a really difficult decision for us to make.
We were worried about going to an area where people are, unfortunately, not being safe. We were worried about states potentially locking down and us getting stuck on the road. My mom is a pre-K teacher, and she was worried about spreading the virus to her students. So, even though we love our family in Texas, and our traditions are very special to us, we decided that the best decision we could make would be to stay home.
KUNR’s Youth Media program is a special partnership with the Washoe County School District to train the next generation of journalists.
