I never held Thanksgiving in particularly high esteem, and used to think of it as just the more minor holiday before Christmas, but over the years it has grown

I never held Thanksgiving in particularly high esteem, and used to think of it as just the more minor holiday before Christmas, but over the years it has grown a lot in significance for me. I've been doing "Friendsgiving" for many years now, but I didn't start doing it because of any kind of convenience or difficulty with family. In my case, it was born out of necessity. I live in Los Angeles, which attracts a lot of young people with a lot of different dreams. The reality is that with the combination of only a small amount of vacation time we receive in the US, living a long distance from family, and not having enough money, it often means that you can't go back for all of the holidays and need to prioritize. For me, since my hometown high school friends all went back around Christmas, I chose that time to spend with family. Since we were stuck here in the new city, we decided to have a Thanksgiving and jokingly referred to it as something like "Thanksgiving for the displaced youth of Los Angeles." It turned out that a lot of people we knew here were in the same situation, because turnout was good. I'm also fortunate to have friends from all over the world, and since it isn't an international holiday they didn't have much reason to return home. We continue to grow closer as a group every year, and as people have brought their friends we have made new friends too. It has gone from something we did because we were all stuck in the same place together to something that we actually seek out and look forward to. Now we even have friends come in from thousands of miles away who have since moved to other cities or even out of the country. Now I can afford to go back for Thanksgiving, but I don't see myself doing it. It's not that I don't cherish the time I spend with family, but now I also have a holiday which, previously an afterthought, is a very important day when I get to spend time with people I deeply care about.