Thanksgiving Travel?

This weeks FS Weekly Blog Roundup is being hosted by Sara at WIFE-MOMMY-WOMAN. The theme this week is "Thanksgiving to travel or not to travel?" Be sure to click over there on Friday and see what up in the FS blog-o-sphere.

What is your favorite holiday? Christmas? Fourth of July? Mine has always been Thanksgiving. This is largely due to my Aunt Patsy and Uncle Tommy who hosted a huge family get together at their farm every year. Since we are from southern Texas the weather was usually mild enough that the men could hang around outside talking and playing washers (sort of like horse shoes but it doesn't wreck the grass) while the women hung around the kitchen visiting and helping out with the cooking. The kids ran wild and had a blast. The adults took took turns driving the kids around on the mule (no, not an animal but a farm work vehicle) the kids would load up in the bed and someone would jump in the drivers seat and take them out in the fields for a drive. It was so much fun seeing everyone and eating all the great food.

I miss Thanksgiving with the family. We do manage to have a nice Thanksgiving dinner each year overseas. Sometimes by ourselves and sometimes with other families. I already have my turkey in the freezer ready for this year. Now I just need to figure out the rest of the meal.

I wanted to bid on Mexico City last bid cycle. My sole reason was so we could go home for Thanksgiving. Okay, Thanksgiving and/or Christmas, maybe both. It's a short flight from Mexico to South Texas. We could have been home in just a few hours. We are in Africa so obviously that didn't work out. Darn drug wars! Sigh.*

The question was posed: To travel or not to travel for Thanksgiving? I know that in the states Thanksgiving is a huge travel day but overseas the question changes. It becomes Do I send the kids to school or keep them home? You see Thanksgiving is an American holiday and the kids attend International schools. They don't get Thanksgiving Day off, it's just another day. And honestly even if I did want to travel home it would mean taking the kids out school for a week or more since it is more than a day's travel to get home from here and as they get older it gets harder to pull them out of school without them getting all behind.

The first couple of years overseas I sent the kids to school so I could cook in peace, after all unlike at Aunt Patsy's house where all I had to make was the dinner rolls and a dessert, now I have to cook the entire meal from turkey to pumpkin pie all by myself. It didn't seem like much of a celebration to have the kids go to school as usual, then have homework, before the big event. It just turned out to be a big fancy meal, not much more. The last few years I have kept the kids home. It makes the day a little harder on me but it turns it back into a family event. When my kids grow up I really want them to look back on Thanksgiving and have good memories of a very special American holiday.

*Someday we are going to be posted to someplace I can actually get home from for Thanksgiving. Any thoughts on Jamaica or maybe Costa Rica?