Thanksgiving is a new holiday for me and many international students in their first semester at Weber State University. This is my second year since I moved from Peru to Utah, but this is the first year that I experienced an actual Thanksgiving.

Last year, I spent my Thanksgiving alone. I had just moved to the U.S., my family was out of state and it was just a normal day for me.

At the same time, it felt weird and kind of lonely because I was away from home on the holidays.. As an international student, even if you don’t typically celebrate U.S. holidays, it’s still the holiday season and it feels a little bit odd when many of your friends are celebrating with their families when yours is far away.

This year, things were different. For starters, I got into a relationship, and that means if you make it to the holidays, you meet the family and spend the holidays together. I went to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving, and it was my first time in that city as well.

We spent four days together with his family. It was nice to be part of a celebration and feel included.

The actual day of Thanksgiving was like any other day. Most of my boyfriend’s family arrived on Friday, so we decided to have Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday when everyone was there.

My first two days of Thanksgiving break were spent visiting hotels and casinos, riding a rollercoaster at the New York-New York Hotel, which was awesome, and visiting attractions.

When Saturday came, we started the preparations for Thanksgiving dinner, along with setting up the Christmas tree. My boyfriend and I were in charge of the tree, last minute grocery shopping and setting the table.

It was nice to sit around a table, talk and laugh with each other and be part of this celebration. I found out that I love homemade cranberry sauce, and the stuffing and creamed spinach were my favorites.

Thanksgiving break was amazing, but it ended with an awful amount of traffic that we encountered outside of Mesquite, Nevada.

This Thanksgiving was 10/10 for me, and we are thinking of making Thanksgiving in Vegas our new tradition.