Imagine a beautiful dining table topped with traditional Thanksgiving dishes: mashed potatoes, turkey, cranberry sauce and stuffing. Now, imagine a buffet including Italian lasagna and bolognese or Dominican pastelón and plantains.

For many students at the high school, the picture of a Thanksgiving meal time takes on a form different from the traditional one.

Junior Elena Assad believes that the International Students Thanksgiving, held this year on Nov. 22, connects international students with the idea of an American Thanksgiving. According to Assad, each international student brings a dish from his or her country of origin or culture. Ultimately, a long table in the MLK room is filled with a variety of tasty dishes.

According to Assad, the lasagna she brought to the event last year was one of the most popular food options at the feast.

Junior Penelope Cruz celebrates her Dominican roots during Thanksgiving by eating traditional Dominican food that she enjoys cooking with her family.

“There’s this food called pastelón that my family cooks,” Cruz said. “It’s plantains, cheese and ground beef. We also eat this kind of meat called penin, which is like a pork roast.”

Similarly, sophomore Jared Hidalgo enjoys eating Dominican food, but also as turkey and mashed potatoes.

“We eat lots of Dominican food, like pocho,” Hidalgo said. We also get this huge Dominican soup.”

Canadian Thanksgiving, which was on Oct. 10 this year, is another experience that students at the high school may enjoy. According to junior Langton Hewitt, Canadian Thanksgiving is just like American Thanksgiving, just without the American history.

“Really all that you do is eat turkey, say thanks and maybe if you’re in kindergarten, you trace out a hand and make a turkey-like drawing,” Hewitt said.

World Language Coordinator Agnès Albérola, who grew up in France, incorporates French cuisine into her Thanksgiving dinner made from scratch. According to Albérola, believes Thanksgiving is about including others, especially since she was invited to a Thanksgiving dinner the first year she lived in the United States.

Her menu for this year’s Thanksgiving, which includes goose and tarte aux pommes, a French apple tart, is usually served in Wellfleet, Cape Cod to her children and grandchildren.

Freshman Charlotte McMahon appreciates a traditional approach to Thanksgiving with her family’s own “wacky” twist. McMahon has twenty-seven cousins on her father’s side of the family, whom she eats Thanksgiving dinner with.

According to McMahon, her family is planning to join her cousins on an overnight trip in downtown Boston on Thanksgiving weekend this year.

“My cousins have lived in Boston before, and it’s really fun to do normal touristy things the day after the actual holiday,” McMahon said.

McMahon said that Thanksgiving is especially enjoyable because of the time she gets to spend with family.

“I just feel so whole, especially since I have a really big family,” McMahon said. “Seeing everyone is special, especially because on some holidays, you don’t always see people all together.”