Stevie Wonder has a fantastic song called “A Time to Love.” In the song he sings:

“We make time to debate religion/Passing bills and building prisons/For building fortunes and passing judgements/When will there be a time to love?”

And there are many days for that, but the most notable one occurs this Thursday. The hard part is the relatives in one’s family who go around making time to purposely bring up topics of religion and legislation. One of my friends was telling me at lunch earlier this week that she has an uncle who will go around (perhaps after a bit too much wine) and bluntly ask questions like, “So what do you think about stem cells?”

But I think that it is important not to get bogged down by that. Sure, the political arguments might stick out in your mind more than whatever small talk you attempt with that one aunt that you barely ever see. But don’t shun these practices as mundane. People are pretty interesting. So don’t dismiss your family members just because your conversation with them never left the “Hey! How are you?” stage.

I’m not a huge fan of turkey, I don’t really like football and most of the topics brought up by my family members are ones that I don’t know anything about or don’t feel comfortable expressing my views on. For my peers and me, Thanksgiving break might seem like a great excuse to veg out and catch up on sleep.

But as extremely cheesy as this will sound, it’s really important that we take time to love. You don’t need grand sweeping gestures to show your love. Just be sure to give a few kind words, help out in the kitchen if you can or share a conversation with someone. Play a game of cards, or laugh at a relative’s bad joke. Love doesn’t have to come with boxes of chocolate; sometimes we can fulfill a time to love just by giving those we love some time out of our day.

Jeffrey Langan can be reached at lang5466@stthomas.edu.