Today, we’re departing for our now annual European Thanksgiving week trip, and this year, we’re headed to Spain. This is our fourth European Thanksgiving trip together: in 2013, we were in Germany; in 2014, we went to Vienna, Austria, and Budapest, Hungary; in 2015, we trekked throughout Switzerland. In our two Thanksgivings before that, we were in Ocean City, Maryland in 2011, and Puerto Rico in 2012. It’s been a trip that we both look forward to and is a new tradition we have as a family of 2.

Despite being away for the actual Thanksgiving week, I love Thanksgiving and still try to have a Thanksgiving feast with friends in the week or two before we leave. I have a lot of fond memories of having Thanksgiving dinners growing up with my family, when we were more or less altogether and somewhat cohesive. The last Thanksgiving I was home for was in November 2003, which is now over 13 years ago. It was the Thanksgiving of my last year of high school, and little did I know that I’d never come back home for Thanksgiving ever again. I’d never have a reason to. Why would you come home for Thanksgiving when your mother and your aunt are Jehovah’s Witnesses, your dad doesn’t want to participate when your mom doesn’t, your cousins and their wives don’t even want to all be in the same room together, your uncle would rather work overtime and get paid time and a half than spend a traditional family meal together, and your brother is dead because he committed suicide? Thanksgiving with family is special and matters only when the family you are going back to matters and cares about the holiday and you. If they don’t care about the holiday or you, then it’s not special and it doesn’t matter. It’s just another day on the calendar, and here in the U.S., you get at least a random Thursday off for it.

That’s why I don’t like it when people call Thanksgiving meals with friends “friendsgiving.” I completely understand why people feel a need to differentiate it; Thanksgiving is *supposed* to be with family, so you need a marker to denote that your modified Thanksgiving meal was with friends. But what if you don’t have a family, or your family doesn’t care about having a Thanksgiving meal with you either because they don’t care about Thanksgiving, you, or both, and all you have are your friends? What if you choose to have your Thanksgiving celebration with friends? Why should that be denigrated to a “friendsgiving” as opposed to a Thanksgiving? My Thanksgiving meal the last several years has been with friends; I’m not calling it “friendsgiving.” And I correct people when they say, “Oh, you had friendsgiving early.” It’s insensitive without them even realizing it.