As Thanksgiving approaches, many take a moment to reflect on the central theme surrounding this time of year: gratitude . Sometimes it can be easy to take the small things for granted, but this holiday offers opportunity to recognize what we have. Ask people what they are grateful for, and you’ll start to see patterns arise in what many of us are able to have: most often family, but also friends, among other things. However, there are a great many things Fossil Ridge High School’s students are grateful for, spanning across a wide range of subjects.

Take, for example, Kenny Hotra, sophomore and tuba player for the school’s band program. Kenny is thankful for his water bottle. “It was a gift, and I can just have some water anytime,” he states. Dane Harnisch, on the other hand, is grateful for late start (it gives him something to look forward to), and Terri Guterrez is appreciative of Fossil’s teachers, simply because they are nice. Some students’ appreciations are simple and broad, such as Cydney Foster’s: food. Other students’ thanks include education, opportunities, and more.

For most of us, there are many things, even on a small scale, to be thankful for.I, personally, have compiled a list of everyday objects of which I am appreciative. It is as follows:

• Homemade lunches: My friends all buy their lunch everyday, and the school’s chicken sandwiches are reason enough to convince me I make the right choice in bringing last night’s leftover tacos.
• College Ruled Paper: Somewhere out there, trees are dying so that we can readily jot meaningless thoughts into notebooks at a low price, just to be tossed out quickly thereafter. However, this paper is readily available and easily accessible for a plethora of uses.
• Pencil Sharpeners: There is nothing more satisfying than a perfectly sharp No. 2 pencil.
• No. 2 Pencils themselves: though mechanical pencils are generally more widely used (except during the much-anticipated standardized tests, which very intentionally are left off this list) No. 2 pencils are tangible and reliable.
• Clubs: Student-initiated clubs offer a diverse array of areas to explore in a casual and entertaining fashion, presenting a more relaxed alternative to other extracurriculars.
• School Clocks: Sure, they’re often a few minutes off and seem to operate on a system of time unique to only them, but the convenience of being able to tell how close a class is to starting or ending at a glance is relieving, to say the least..
• Google Docs: With an ever-growing number of things that need to be typed up digitally, this program always offers organization and the consolation of never having to worry about losing documents worth more hours than one would prefer.
• Tall Trees: Though often overlooked, the size of a tree, unsurprisingly, indicates how old it is. That said, the shade and structure provided by older trees are often lost with development.
• Folders: Cheap plastic is the perfect way to organize overwhelming amounts of the aforementioned college ruled paper.

Water bottles and pencil sharpeners, clubs and clocks, family and friends – there is much to give thanks for this Thursday. Wherever you go and whatever you have, take a moment, even if brief, to appreciate all of it.