Family rituals

Planning for holiday gatherings comes around too soon

Two weeks ago my daughter called me to ask about our family’s plans for Thanksgiving. She wanted to know whether I intended to host the holiday, or if our entire extended family would be traveling to my parents’ house in upstate New York.

I found this call perplexing. Not so much for the question she was posing, but because of the timing. I feel my daughter should know that I never start planning for the holidays any sooner than I absolutely have to.

Thanksgiving is at the end of November. I’ve got a good month and a half before I need to address the “who’s hosting this thing, anyway?” question.

Let’s just enjoy the fall before we begin trying to map out the great geographical conundrum the holidays have become, I suggested. Because Thanksgiving, originally a day devoted to gratitude, has evolved for our family into a strategic dilemma, devoted primarily to geography.

We all want to celebrate together in one place. We can’t possibly figure out a sane way to accomplish that. When I speak of my family here, I am referring to my three siblings, my parents, my numerous nieces and nephews, and, of course, my own three grown children and their significant others. Oh yeah, and my new granddaughter.

It is difficult to say whether we are lucky or unlucky to all live within a day’s drive of one another. I can say, however, that I have spent a lot of days, and particularly holidays, driving to someone’s house. And I can also say that I am willing to do that again.

However, finding the perfect place to hold a holiday is no longer as easy as it once was. When all of our kids were young, my siblings and I would gather at my parents’ four bedroom house. There, the children could play, the adults could cook and talk and there always seemed to be enough room for whatever friends, uncles, aunts and cousins turned up.

What’s more, the house was centrally located, so that my brother who lived nearby could go home with his family at the end of the day, while my sister and I and our families could sleep over.

But, my parents moved out of their house two years ago. And even before that, as the kids grew, college schedules and then work demands and new relationships made it more difficult to gather everyone in a single place, even for a holiday.

I’ve been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence lately — how it will take over jobs and prove so much smarter than humans we won’t even be able to control our computers anymore. I’m hoping there’s an upside to that.

Maybe there will come a time when I can solve the riddle of

family holidays simply by asking my iPhone “Who’s hosting Thanksgiving this year?” Right now, though, Siri can’t even help me find parking. She really can’t do anything except correct me when I speak.

Therefore, I am left to puzzle out the question of the holidays without artificial intelligence. Which is why I rely primarily not on my own intelligence, but on procrastination and noncomital responses. If I wait long enough, if every time I am asked about a holiday I answer, “Gee, I’m not sure;” or else I shrug and say “Sure, I’d love to host it.” Eventually the holiday gets here and we have to make a decision and then whoever can make it shows up. This isn’t a perfect solution. But it’s the best I can come up with for now.

So, when my daughter called in September and asked if Thanksgiving was going to be at my house or her grandmother’s house, I said “Gee, I’m not sure.” And I felt just a little bit sad. Because fall is barely here and I’m already strategizing for the holidays.