November 23, 3019

Some of our best family times happen over the long Thanksgiving weekend. It's not a special bonding time with my whole family at my sister’s house as we enjoy her beautifully cooked meal.

No, it’s the car rides to and from Thanksgiving that have created great family memories.

Never mind that most of the ride, my husband is the only one awake in the car. He says that’s just how he likes his family: strapped in and quiet.

We weren’t the picture-perfect family who rode along the open highway singing with the windows open or playing challenging word games. But once we settled into the car, we’d introduce our kids to the music we loved as kids. For me, it was show tunes, for my husband it was the Grateful Dead. 

And we’d share the stories of our family history, including car rides with our own parents — with no seat belts and our dad’s smoking cigars.

Our family rides were very different from those of our childhood.  We didn’t have things like little TVs to keep us occupied. We were lucky to get a seat.  As the youngest of four, I didn’t know you could face the front of a car for years. I thought the only possible view was out the back window of a station wagon.

Somehow, despite the comfort of our more modern cars and the technological distractions, our kids still fought over space in the back seat, with lots of shouting that the other one had gone “over the line” (you know, the line moms create that no one is supposed to cross). I bet siblings fought over that line when it was drawn down the middle of covered wagons.

Thanksgiving resulted in particularly late-night rides because every year, right after the meal, we’d get in the car and drive the six hours back home from New York City.

Whenever I pushed back on the annual exodus before the turkey was cold, my husband pushed right back.  He’d say the long drive was no big deal because he’d rather wake up in his own bed, even if that meant he didn’t get to sleep in it very long.

Instead of over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go, it was: out the door and over the bridge to upstate we go, arriving in the middle of the night a little disoriented and somehow still full. When my son was in college, those six-hour trips were extended to 13 hours to his campus so we could watch his football team lose to their biggest rival (it’s a tradition!).

Somehow our long car rides created forced family time in a small space that far outweighed the discomfort of the cross-body seat belt. Being together without a way to escape created intimacy and connection that I always crave when we are at home and able to retreat to our little holes (aka rooms).

A few years ago, my son moved cross country for his first post-college job. He and his dad got in a car and drove there in two days. They made some stops at Cadillac Ranch and the Grand Canyon, but mostly it was driving the open road.

I felt a little jealous of their time together. But then I remembered the aches and pains of sitting in the seat on long trips, my husband refusing to stop for a bathroom until the car is on empty, and eating greasy food on my lap because he also refused to actually rest at a rest stop on trips.

Still, I’m looking forward to taking the long way home this year. Happy Thanksgiving to all, wherever you celebrate. 

As first published in the Democrat + Chronicle and on the USA Today Network