One of the many joys of Thanksgiving break besides the slight reprieve from the constant flow of school work is the chance to have a little free time — a concept we tend to forget about while living in work-centric Saratoga. My family decided to capitalize on our spare time this year and finally got around to a project we had talked about for years: setting up my dad’s old record player.

Although neither my older sister nor I had ever seen this record player, as it had yet to make an appearance since the mid 1980s, we had both heard stories about the “old” days of listening to records rather than blasting music through the always-tangled earphones of an iPod.

So we eagerly pulled the dusty record player down from a shelf in the garage, along with two very heavy boxes filled with old records. Every band or musician seemed to be represented, from Pink Floyd to Bruce Springsteen to David Bowie to so many more, some of which were completely foreign to me.

As soon as I heard the first record being played, I could tell there was no comparison in sound between this and a CD or an iPod. Call me old fashioned, but our generation is missing out. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what that difference is, but the sound of a vinyl record has something unique and special that doesn’t translate into the convenience and compact size of an iPod.

Listening to favorites from past decades that I had only ever heard on a CD was fascinating. The more popular records of the day certainly didn’t disappoint and my favorites that are on my iPod (all of The Police and U2 albums) sounded twice as nice. I also can’t forget my beloved musical soundtracks — homework proved to be more difficult when my sister chose to play the original “Grease” record and all I wanted to do was sing along.

I’ll be sure to spend some time over winter break hunting for more records. Rather than just listening to a song, records seem to take me on an imaginary trip back to a time when perhaps teenagers were not quite as obsessed with the SAT and college admissions.

Right now, I’m anxiously awaiting the time when I can sit back and relax with a cup of tea and an old Christmas album spinning in the record player — sounds perfect right about now, don’t you agree?