A 500-Mile Thanksgiving Tradition Has Her Family Divided As She Wonders If She Should Just Stay Home
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Holiday gatherings become difficult when attending requires major travel, extra costs, and several days of planning.
This woman faces a nearly thousand-mile round trip, winter driving, hotel bills, and pet care just for Thanksgiving.
That request feels even harder because her sister rarely makes the trip to visit everyone else.
See why she decided this family dinner simply wasn’t worth the journey.
AITA for ditching family Thanksgiving?
Most of my (48f) family lives along the i5 corridor in SW Washington/Portland.
This includes my husband and I, my 25yo son, my dad and stepmom, my mom and stepdad, my stepsister and her husband, my brother and his two kids.
My sister (45f) used to also live here with her husband and two kids, but moved to Tri Cities Wa for her husband’s job (about a 3.5 hr drive from here).
The move was supposed to last 4 years. That was about 15 years ago.
Sister and her husband divorced, her daughter finished college and put down roots in Western WA, and her son married and is now back in Tri Cities.
After sister and her husband split, she got into a relationship with a man who goes out of his way to be a jerk to me.
They decided around 2021 that instead of moving west where the majority of her family is, they would move to the Idaho panhandle.
The entire opposite direction. Bf’s sister lives in the area, but there are no other ties.
They bought a home in Northern Idaho’s even more inflated housing market and my sister’s profession pays less there than it would in Western Washington.
On top of that, there is no work there that pays her bf a decent wage, so he’s spent the past year working on an island in the middle of the Pacific (apparently the only place that would have him).
Which brings us to Thanksgiving.
She invited all of us to her house for Thanksgiving. Here are some problems with that:
It’s a nearly 500 mile trip one way. Because of the time of year, I’d need to drive my F150 instead of the more economical Prius.
My dog is impossible to travel long distance with and we have a new kitten, so we’d need to hire a sitter to stay at our house. While not really my sister’s fault or problem, it’s a consideration for me.
My sister thinks for some reason she has room for everybody.
In reality, she has a one bedroom guest house, one guest room in the main house, and possibly a second (depending on if bf’s mom will be there, since the second guest room is hers).
Which means husband and I are on the hook for two nights in a hotel, provided we can find one in what amounts to a ski destination at the beginning of ski season.
And maybe I would still go over if she ever made an effort to reciprocate.
But she always volunteers to work on Christmas, so she never has to make the trip to my house for that holiday.
Most of the rest of the family is going to make the trip, but my husband and I are not going to Thanksgiving.
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I think it’s just too audacious of a request that 15 of us (including our parents and their spouses in their 70s) spend a not insignificant amount of time, money, and effort to accommodate her lifestyle choice.
Or maybe I’m just butt hurt she left me and am acting like the petulant AH I really am.
Let’s see what the commenters think.
This Reddit user is on her side.
Another commenter thinks she’s complaining for no reason.
Many people supported her reasons for staying home.
Others said they wouldn’t go out there for the trip either.
This woman isn’t wrong for declining a holiday trip that would cost considerable time, money, and effort.
Her sister is free to host Thanksgiving, but an invitation shouldn’t become an obligation when most relatives live hundreds of miles away.
A free turkey dinner stops being free after fuel, hotels, pet care, and a thousand-mile drive.
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