Happy Monday guys! I found that a lot of you connected to last weeks post . Besides writing about things I see or do, I decided that I will also write more about my personal life. So, without further ado, let’s get into it!
Can ya’ll believe Thanksgiving is this week? It’s my favorite holiday and I am so excited to be celebrating with my family. Spoiler; this is what this post is about: family.
As the only child of Mexican immigrants, my parents and I have a tight bond. For the entirety of my life, it has always been my mom, my dad, and I.
I would say 95% of my family lives in Mexico, where my parents are from. For reasons I can’t explain, I don’t have a relationship with the 5% that do live in Southern California.
What I’m trying to get at with this, is that holidays could sometimes, for a lack of a better word, be trash. Society teaches you that holidays are a perfect time to have with your perfect and large family.
In my life, that could not be further from the truth. My dad works on holidays, and with no other family, I found myself scrambling to make Thanksgiving plans, while my mom usually took the holiday to get a rare day of rest from work.
Before you get the idea that I am bitter and this is some sob story, it isn’t. For me, my friends became my family.
I am lucky enough to have friends that I have known for almost 20 years. Some would invite me over to their house every year for Thanksgiving, and for that, I am eternally grateful. It is for that reason, that I created Chuntsgiving.
For the last two or three years, I have hosted a Thanksgiving dinner at my house for my friends, my mom, and I. The name Chuntsgiving, comes from calling my friends my chunts (if you’re Latino, you might know the word “chunti”, this is a play off that).
Most of my friends come from broken homes, or their parents don’t live in Southern California. For us, Chuntsgiving is not a friendsgiving, it’s a family gathering.
I know they say blood is thicker than water, but that’s absolute B.S. to me. Family is whoever you want to be, blood related or not. At my house, my friends and I feel safe and most of all, loved (and of course, full).
The holidays can be an awful time for some and you never know what someone is going through. If you have a friend that you know is going to be alone this Thanksgiving, please invite them over for dinner.
If you are lucky enough to have a stable family, or family members that live close to you, count your blessings and remember to always be kind.
I hope ya’ll have an amazing Thanksgiving wherever and however you celebrate it. My family and I will be sprawled in the living room talking about memes and Capitalism.
