My First Thanksgiving as the Cook

Today was a great day filled with fun and food with my friends.  I live in Seattle now and I can not go home for Thanksgiving because it is too far for too short of time.  Last year I went home with my roommate which was fun but this year I decided I wanted to stay at school.  The dorms remain open but the dinning does not.  So...  my friends(Evie, Chelsea, Ali, and Hannah) and I made a thanksgiving meal at school.  We made all of it.  We began cooking at 2 o'clock and we ate at 5!  Three hours for a whole meal is a lot less time then I expected.  We began by cooking the sweet potatoes which we peeled, chopped, cooked and baked.  I had sweet potatoes for the first time less then a week ago and thought they were a must have at out dinner.  We also made mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, salad, rolls and gravy.  It was a lot of fun and being in the dorms is the second place I would want to be on this holiday, first being at home.  After dinner we watched The Santa Clause to kick off the Christmas season while eating pumpkin pie and peanut butter pie along with apple spiced cider.  After the movie I read from Blue Like Jazz to my friends as we all laid there still stuffed and then played Banana Grams.  I am still really full and it is 12 midnight.  Oh Thanksgiving how wonderful you are.  I pray that I will learn to be thankful every day rather then just one day a year.  
The rest of this weekend I am planning to finish all of my assignments for the rest of the quarter so for the next week(starting monday), all I have to do is study for finals!  There is only a total of four of us on our floor so it should be a productive day.  I want to go for a walk tomorrow out in the snow.  
Now for my rant which is mostly directed at me, even though I do not go shopping on black friday, this can represent any day of the year...
Today is the day when everyone reflects on the things they are thankful for.  Why is it only this one day?  How come we spend this whole day being thankful and then the next day, rush out and spend hours and hours of their time buying things that they don't need.  How come that thankfulness that we just claimed to have felt the day before all leaves us to the point where we are rude to the other shoppers who get in our way or take the last of what we wanted.  Lets remember our thankfulness this year, not just on november 25 but on every day we are alive!