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I Love Working On Thanksgiving; Here’s Why

Family is what you make it

Kevin Alexander
5 min readNov 24, 2024
A daytime take off of a blue & white MD-11 aircraft operated by Dutch carrier KLM takes off from an unnamed airpiort.
KLM flew MD-11s to Memphis. This specific airframe (PH-KCD, aka the “Florence Nightingale,” was a frequent guest. Photo: Pinterest.

By the time we meet again, Thanksgiving will have passed, and retail advertising will have hit critical mass. This could quickly devolve into a lament about the passing of time or a rant about staging holiday merchandise too early (looking at you, Costco!), but it won’t…at least not yet.

The music world has followed suit, with a few Album of the Year lists already coming out. It’s wild. I know December is traditionally a slow month for new stuff, but writers still have plenty of time to find something they may have missed!

At any rate, I want to talk about Thanksgiving itself, or rather, how I spend it and why. I try to observe two traditions on T-day. The first is playing this song. Maybe this is a tradition we share? If it is, lemme know in the comments.

The second? I will be at work having lunch with my coworkers.

This invariably leads to two questions from readers: First, wtf are you doing eating lunch at 7 a.m.? Second, why are you at work?

The first answer is easy. We start at 4 AM, and there is a break in flight activity that makes 7–730 or 730–8 the perfect time. In this case, it’s really no different than any other day.

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Kevin Alexander
Kevin Alexander

Written by Kevin Alexander

Indie music journalist | Mixtape maker | EIC The Riff Magazine | Writer of the On Repeat Newsletter on Substack |

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