Thanksgiving Travel Challenge

Newsletter 2024-11-15

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us. For some, that thought inspires great joy. Those are the people doing the eating and not the cooking. For the hosts, this is the calm before the storm. Soon, hordes of gluttonous relatives will descend on their homes, devastating both their peace and their grocery bills. In my family, those unlucky victims are my parents. They’ll be hosting all seven of their children this weekend. That’s right: My family went rogue and scheduled Thanksgiving early in defiance of the will of the Great Turkey. By moving our gathering up to a non-holiday weekend, they hoped to make it easier for their many, many children to get off work and travel home. That proved not to be the case at all. The following is a rundown of the challenges faced by myself and my six siblings to make it back, ranked in order from easiest to hardest. The most challenging part of this list will be getting the fake names right. I’ve forgotten and switched pseudonyms so often that I’ve probably used twenty-five different names for my various brothers and sisters. I assure you that there are only seven of us, at least as of the last headcount. In any Catholic family, you can never rule out an extra kid or two showing up. They better bring their own plate and silverware if they want to eat.

Nathaniel

Travel difficulty: 0 out of 10

My youngest sibling has it the easiest. He still lives at home. As a senior in high school, he’s waiting for his life to begin—and end. The day you grow up is the day it’s all over. The only way Nathaniel’s trip could be shorter is if he slept in the kitchen. As a teenage boy, I’m sure he’s considered it. He currently spends most of his time at the computer in his bedroom, which is about ten feet from where we’ll be eating. Ironically, he’s the brother I will likely see the least. He tends to emerge from his room only long enough to inhale a plateful of food before disappearing again for the rest of the day. Spotting him outside of mealtimes is harder than seeing Bigfoot, especially if you believe my dad and his various cryptid websites. Those forums report dozens of sasquatch encounters a month. I’ll be lucky to see Nathaniel twice all weekend.

Arthur

Travel difficulty: 1 out of 10

My second-youngest sibling has it slightly harder than Nathaniel. He has to actually leave his house. He lives two doors down from my parents. He’s only a few years out of college and will soon own his own home outright. That’s one of the advantages of growing up in a city where most houses cost in the five figures. People who dream of mountain views or beach front property have it all wrong. Set down roots in a spot where nobody else wants to be and you can own an entire house for the change in your car’s cup holder. Arthur claims he wants to eventually live someplace more exciting, but that would be a bad move. He’s a bachelor who works mostly from home. His two-bedroom, one-bathroom house has enough space to meet his needs for the rest of his life. As a bonus, he has a huge, detached garage. It’s technically only two and a half bays, but when he parks his Prius inside of it, it looks like an aircraft hanger. As all guys know, size is mostly an illusion. If women ever see his oversized garage, he’ll have a wife in no time. That would mean kids and eventually moving to a bigger house. I’ll do everything I can to keep the ladies away.

I hope Arthur stays in his current house for my own selfish reasons. When all of us are home, his house offers a nearby overflow bathroom. His outbuilding is also important. You’re not a true Midwesterner unless you view a garage as an entertaining space. No matter how many of us there are, we could all fit in his aircraft hanger on lawn chairs, staring out at the wider world through the open door as we sip our various adult beverages and avoid all topics that are even remotely contentious. The biggest downside for Arthur is that my parents will try to stick a kid or two at his house if too many people spend the night. Perhaps he’s justified in wanting to move away after all. He doesn’t have to go that far. If he moves across the street, he should be safe.

Me

Travel difficulty: 3 out of 10

As the main character of this newsletter and reality itself, my trip home is the most important journey of all. What would the holidays be without me? Probably a lot more fun. I live an hour from my parents’ house. When I was a little kid, I viewed sixty minutes in the car as the longest journey on earth. Frodo had a shorter trip to Mount Doom. Then I grew up. For my first job out of college, I drove forty-five minutes each way. I’ve changed employers multiple times since then, but I’ve never been closer than half an hour. On my best days, I could make it in twenty-eight minutes with the wind at my back and a major crime somewhere else in the county to keep the cops away. Given that experience, the hour trip to get home for Thanksgiving is nothing. It’s so short that I refuse to sleep over. It would take me longer to pack my stuff to crash there than it would for me to make two separate trips and be at my own house each night. I’ll make one trip alone Friday to hang out with the early siblings and another with my full crew Saturday when the whole family is on hand. It helps that my kids travel well. They haven’t learned to get along with each other. They’re just big enough to be distracted by their own devices. Screen time is peacetime. Somebody should tell the UN. They can finally end all wars.

Ella

Travel difficulty: 6 out of 10

This is the sister whose name I change the most often because I mention her the least. Good for her for living the kind of life I can’t make fun of. Your goal should always be to escape my notice. She’ll be driving in from St. Louis with two small children. They’re at the age where they could either nap or start fires in the back seat. She won’t know which it will be until she’s too far from home to turn around. She’ll need enough supplies to keep people clothed and hygienic throughout the weekend. That will be roughly sixteen outfits per child. Gravy has quite a splash zone. I assume she’ll tow a trailer behind her car with all the necessary cargo. All good weekend trips require their own baggage train.

Sasha

Travel difficulty: 7 out of 10

Sasha lives slightly farther away than Ella in Missouri. How so much of my Illinois family ended up in the Show Me State is a mystery. Not really. Colleges there are cheap. There’s no distance my clan won’t drive for a discount. Sasha doesn’t have any kids, but she does have a boyfriend and two very energetic dogs. She’ll be bringing her guy back with her mostly as a beastmaster. Without someone to keep an eye on them, one or the other or possibly both dogs would end up driving the car. In Missouri, that’s allowed. Sasha gets extra difficulty points because she plans to drive the four hours to my parents house and the four hours back to Missouri all in one day. Her visit will last just long enough for her to eat her body weight in turkey, which is exactly the right amount of time for any family gathering. If she wanted to be even more efficient, she wouldn’t stop her vehicle. She would just roll past and we would hand her a plate of turkey through her window. The only downside of that approach is that her dogs would surely overpower her and steal it. They might have mastered operating a motor vehicle, but they still struggle with sharing.

Mitchell

Travel difficulty: 7 out of 10

Mitchell is the Missouri sibling traveling the farthest, and with the second largest crew in the family to boot. He has three kids to my four. Nobody else wanted to equal my child count. Once again, my life has served as a warning to others. Mitchell will somewhat offset his travel difficulty by driving to my parents’ house and back to Missouri on different days. The drawback is he’ll need to bring even more supplies. Luckily for him, he owns a massive truck, as is required by the one and only law in Missouri. He’s one of the main reasons we’re doing Thanksgiving early. He has an important job that requires him to work odd shifts around the clock. He made the mistake of being good at something important. That’s not a trap I’ll ever fall into. I’ve elevated weaponized incompetence to an art form.

Harry

Travel difficulty: 10 out of 10