Thanksgiving Address: Teddy Hollander-Bodie '26

During assembly on Tuesday, November 25, Teddy Hollander-Bodie '26 delivered this year's Thanksgiving remarks. For many years, seniors have selected someone from their class to offer this reflection — a tradition that gained new meaning a few years ago when it was named to honor and remember past JBS parent and grandparent Steven Plax, MD. (Fun fact: Teddy's brother, Julius Hollander-Bodie '22, gave the Thanksgiving address in 2021.).

In his introduction, Mr. Abbott noted that while Dr. Plax’s accomplishments as a physician and mentor were remarkable, what people remember most is his warmth — the way he made everyone around him feel seen, supported, and better about themselves. Mr. Abbott shared that although each Thanksgiving speaker brings a unique voice and perspective, they all reflect the qualities that defined Dr. Plax: humility, integrity, gratitude, and above all, kindness.

Here is a video, followed by a full transcript of Teddy's remarks.

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Good morning, students, faculty, staff, and Mr. Abbott. Before I get started, I’d like to thank the senior class for choosing me to speak — I’m truly honored.

Our first experience at Burroughs together, 7th grade, was during the pandemic. For me, that was tough. Not by any fault of my classmates — how could y’all have done anything when I hadn’t even seen half of you outside of a screen? And that other half I did see, I only really saw half of you, on account of the masking requirement. So, if I do the math, I think that means I only really got to see a quarter of my class by the time I was done with 7th grade.

That year, my family had Thanksgiving outside. I don’t mind the cold — I actually like the time when autumn becomes winter, and the trees are turning red and gold, and there’s a crisp chill in the air. We had all the same family over whom I love, we had the same dishes that I love, the conversations were good. But something just wasn’t quite right. We were sitting at different tables, we were farther apart than usual. There was a separation — a physical and emotional distance — between everyone there. I was reluctant to hug my cousins and pat them on the back or clamber across three seats to reach for the mashed potatoes. Even talking felt like I was spreading particulate into the air and infecting my whole family. It was like a facsimile of Thanksgiving. Everything was copied, but something just wasn’t right.

That Thanksgiving was missing the tangibles, and Thanksgiving is all about the tangibles. I can feel my shoulders crammed between nine people shoved into the table, and the struggle to pull my chair out when I need to refill my water after having consumed an equivalent sum of around three cups of gravy. Witty, absurd, philosophical, and frankly bizarre conversations go on for the whole night and fill the room kind of like a symphony. A request to pass the turkey or the Brussels sprouts or the bread rolls constantly interrupts the flow, but never stops it — in a way, the interruptions become part of the dialogue. And those bread rolls — indescribable. When I rip them open, it’s like pure love is steaming out and filling my very being.

And once I’m full, and I mean full — the Hollander-Bodies don’t mess around — I go and sit at the couch and talk some more with my family as we take our pre-dessert respite. If there’s nothing to talk about, we can always lament how we definitely ate too much and probably should have saved room for the pies. But when those pies come, you bet I’m still chowing down. 

But in 2020, all that wasn’t really there. It was an attempt to create the Thanksgiving experience — a valiant one, at that — but without the special sauce. There was one part that captured the essence of what I love about Thanksgiving, though. After the meal, we all gathered around the fire. I suppose this appealed to some primeval element in my brain — there’s something so viscerally human about huddling together while the flames crackle up in front of you and your voices float up with the smoke. The firepit made us lean in and really be with each other. The warmth of the fire — tangible.

This year in particular, I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving. This should be the part where I tell you why I’m so grateful for the holiday. But I find that difficult to fully articulate. I could say that I’m almost 18, and as all the responsibility of that comes, I find myself craving the familiar ease of a meal with all my relatives. Or maybe uncertainty is pervading our society, and as the future seems indiscernible and scary, Thanksgiving seems concrete and friendly. Everything is becoming digitized and optimized. It’s easier to do a Zoom call than schedule a meeting. It’s easier to send a text than to write a letter. Why memorize anything when you can look it up? The slow, manual tasks of our everyday lives are being stripped away — and that’s not inherently a bad thing. But when an algorithm is shoveling into my feed exactly what it’s been fine-tuned to think are my preferences, I don’t come away feeling whole. I don’t feel refreshed. Maybe my Thanksgiving experience could be more efficient. Make it a buffet-style meal, only make exactly as much food as each person is statistically likely to eat, get a bigger table with more room. I asked Chat GPT, and it said I could “simplify the menu.” That’s. Not. Happening.

So I could say that those are all the reasons why I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. But at the end of the day, I’m really just thankful for it because it can’t be replicated. It’s something that happens in our physical reality with my family, and it has a nice character to it. Everyone is present, and together, and in the moment. I get to sit at the table with people I love and live.

Every day, when I come to school, I see real, actual people. Not always living in the moment, of course – that’s a lot to ask considering how late some of us are staying up. It’s an imperfect reality. But I see your faces, I hear your voices in front of me. I sit at tables with you — at lunch, stuffed in those wooden chairs, laughing over T-ravs; during English or history, debating how much we can really trust Nick Carraway or if the Constitution gives the federal government too much power; flubbing my lines during a table read. Seeing y’all’s faces every day, not on my computer, not all facing the board as the teacher lectures to the whole class, but here, in person, together. We become tangible for each other. There’s just nothing like it. And this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for that. Thank you.