My family and I moved to Charlottesville from Connecticut nine years ago.  My Mom lives in Fairfield, CT - in the same home where I grew up...and the home still has the look and feel of how I remembered it as a kid = no massive remodeling. My brother lives in Greenwich, my sister in Brooklyn.  I have an uncle in Southport, CT, another uncle outside of Boston.  A cousin lives in Manhattan, as does my Mom's best friend. My mother is a widow - but her wonderful boyfriend lives in Bridgeport, CT - about 20 miles from Fairfield.  I have cousins, nieces and nephews all over New England. For as long as I can remember - and we are talking 20+years - Thanksgiving has been at my Mom's home and there will be 30...40 or more people there.  Aunts and uncles and cousins and boyfriends and girlfriends. The extended family has addresses in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Santa Clara, Portland and Providence.  Some years a few of those folks make the trip East.  When we finally get to my Mom's house, it is great. We do all the usual family things as people show up, and, on Thursday, we scurry around retrieving dusty card tables from the basement, wipe down folding chairs, try and set up and figure where everyone will sit - and I usually get assigned the task of figuring out who sits where and making the placecards. Lot's of tradition doing that.  My Mom, and her brothers, George and Bill, get the same spots each year. The seating is a somewhat delicate business...there is always some horse-trading going on as people start arriving and try switching seats.  Good, family fun.                                                                

Then there is the competition in the (average-sized)kitchen. Prepping the turkeys (there are two large ones,) peeling potatoes, cutting vegetables, organizing all the food, wine, pies, canned nuts, desserts and other delicacies people bring is an engineering challenge. A healthy, familiar tension is in the air...kids cruise though to pick at all the stuff, someone puts on a CD, Peg's Mom replaces it with a classical concerto she likes.     

Anyway, Charlottesville is exactly 415 miles from my Mom's house, taking the 95 route. 29N to the Beltway. Through Maryland, through  Harbor Tunnel past Baltimore, 95 N over the Delaware Memorial to the Jersey Turnpike, over the george Washington Bridge, over the Hudson to the Merritt Parkway to exit 44. We have made this drive probaly 15 - 20 times over the last 8 years (Thanksgiving; Christmas; other family events, a long weekend in the summer.) And we will be doing it again this Wednesday.  We plan on leaving our home at 3:30 AM for the nightmare drive North.  Or should we take 81?  470 miles, but probably less traffic.

Every year I debate if this may be the year to not go to Mom's.  It is such a a hassle, so much stress on the highway, the worry about our two dogs and three cats and is the housesitter taking care of everything.  And, so far, every year we make the trip to Mom's for Thanksgiving - and we will be there this year, too!