Thanksgiving is a special holiday filled with great food, loved ones and, of course, for Bulldog football fans, the Egg Bowl. 

A break from class right before finals is pretty great too. We all have so many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

I usually travel to Arkansas with my parents to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my grandparents and the rest of my family. We come together to eat, watch football and spend time together. 

My family is Italian, so sometimes we have lasagna instead of traditional Thanksgiving foods. Since they live five hours away, it is one of the few times of the year we all get to see each other.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories is from 2013. I returned home from Arkansas just in time to watch the Egg Bowl with some friends. To be honest, we stopped watching the game because Mississippi State was getting beat by Ole Miss pretty bad, so we decided to make a bonfire outside instead. 

We did not know the game had gone into overtime. I walked inside to check the final score and got there just in time to see Jamerson Love recover the fumble from Bo Wallace in the end zone to win the game 17-10. The surprise MSU victory made the night even more special.

Julia Simmons, senior accounting major, said her favorite way to spend Thanksgiving entails going home and spending time with her family, while remembering Thanksgivings of the past.

“I love the fact that I can walk into my Grandma’s house even at 24 and the smell of her cooking brings back memories from when I was little and all of our family was around,” Simmons said. “Two of my aunts died of cancer, my grandfather died and my parents got divorced, so our family gatherings are a lot smaller. I always remember how things were a long time ago whenever I smell Thanksgiving dinner.”

Taylor Bufkin, junior public relations and journalism major, said one of her favorite things about Thanksgiving is the two days full of family and food.

“We have traditional Thanksgiving foods on my daddy’s side of the family, and we have seafood gumbo on my momma’s side of the family,” Bufkin said.

Corey Richardson, senior kinesiology major, said his favorite Thanksgiving tradition is eating and watching football with his family.

“Of course I love to eat and watch football, but I really just like being together with my family and spending time together,” Richardson said.

Jesse Newton, junior fashion design and merchandising major, said his favorite Thanksgiving memory was waking up really early as a kid to drive to his aunt’s house to help her and his mother cook supper for their family.

“They would always put me in charge of making the frosting for our chocolate cake,” Newton said. “I still do it every year.”