As someone who has sent three (about to be four) kids plane flights of 6–8 hours plus layovers away for college, none of our kids have come home for Thanksgiving, ever. They’ve either done Thanksgiving with extended family or friends—fighting the insanity of Thanksgiving weekend airports for a thoroughly jetlagged meal isn’t worth it for nearly anyone.
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What if they have the whole week off for Thanksgiving? Still not worth it?
S25s roommate is from about an hour away from college. I’m really hoping they get along and the roommate invites him home for Thanksgiving. S22’s freshman roommate invited him freshman year, but we scored some direct flight tickets that year (and that year he couldn’t come home otherwise in the fall because of his sport, so I really wanted to see him for Thanksgiving). I’m crossing all the crossables that both boys have something that works this year - and I suspect neither one will be coming home.
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I dont think S23 will want to fly home much this year as he broke up with his gf. D25 will want to come home to work. She will be a 5.5 hr drive away so not horrible. I dont want her to take her car the first semester as I don’t think she’s ready to drive in Chicago traffic on 294. So not useful for the car to be there if I have to drive to her and drive her car home.
Side note. I just saw her roommate’s grad party video. They had a paid decorator at a hall. Me, I had a single foam board from dollar store that I made her tape photos to. I am a crap mom I guess.
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C23 does get the whole week off, and yeah, still not really worth it.
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Ugh don’t do this to yourself! It’s true what they say, that “comparison is the thief of joy”. The parties in people’s backyards or homes are always the best ones imo because the focus is on the person being celebrated and not the venue or the decor. 
What’s important is that you were surrounded by people that care about you and your daughter and they were there to congratulate you both!
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Agree! @2plustrio we had a simple dinner at home. Grad celebration at school on heels of prom seemed like more than enough for my introverted S25. Or perhaps I’m setting up for therapy as an adult!
We do the best we can. 
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I hate that most colleges don’t give the full week of Thanksgiving off. D22 doesn’t usually fly home for fall break (it’s too short, and she’s too busy catching up on sleep and fun), so she’s ready to come home by Thanksgiving.
It’s an easy 2-hour direct flight, so it’s not too bad for her to get in very late Tuesday and go home Sunday evening. But then she flies home a couple weeks later for winter break, and the holiday flights add up.
S25 will be only a 2-hour drive from us (albeit a horrible 2-hour drive on the worst highways, so I’m going to make him drive at like 5 a.m. LOL) – so I expect he’ll come home for holidays.
We’ll see where D26 lands. Four of the six schools she’s considering require flights.
@OctoberKate I went to Florida, and the UF-FSU game is always that Saturday after Thanksgiving. The school was a 4.5-hour drive from home, and my parents didn’t grow up in the U.S. or go to college here, so they didn’t understand fraught college football rivalries or anything about it, really – and they didn’t let me drive back early for the game. And then we WON. After watching the game on TV and screaming throughout, my mom said, “Oh, maybe you should have gone.” I was so mad – I think I’m still mad. 
(This was 1991, lol.)
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Don’t think that way! I blew up some balloons, put out sandwiches and fruit and cheese and some BBQ weenies in the crockpot, LOL, and S25’s friends came over and got in the pool. And everyone had a great time. No fancy decorator needed!
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We had a party at my mom’s house, and didn’t invite friends (only family). I didn’t even have a board with photos! I was all impressed with myself for springing for four big mylar balloons to write out 2025… It’s hard to ignore those comparisons though. My older kid didn’t get invited to any grad parties. He was super close with four teammates, and the five families had a BBQ at one person’s house. That was it for a party and it was perfect. My younger kid, though, invited to three parties. One involved renting out a historic house at a local park - the kind of place where people have small weddings. They had all kinds of fancy stuff and a DJ and it was catered with wait staff cleaning up and manning the bar. It was Fancy with a capital F. But it wasn’t particularly fun. My kid didn’t even want to stay as long as he could have. The other two parties he was invited to were at the homes of the graduates and both of them were much more low key (one had a poster board with some photos and some streamers, the other didn’t have any decor) but they were so much more fun. Just people hanging out and enjoying each other.
I hate, HATE how so many things need to be “instagram perfect” these days.
What’s currently killing me on the Clemson parents facebook page are all the pictures of fancy decor that people want to bring, and questions like “what size futon did you buy” and “where are you buying your tufted headboards”. Finally yesterday a parent posted to remind folks to not be cranky if their roommate isn’t responding about buying coordinated bedding and setting a room aesthetic and all that, because maybe not everyone can afford that, so lets not make people feel guilty about not buying it. I wanted to chime in and say “it’s not even about whether you can afford it. I don’t want to buy all that because I don’t think it’s worth it.” but I couldn’t think of a way to do it without sounding judgey. Like someone posted this picture where they had constructued a (admittedly beautiful) piece of furniture to fit between the two lofted beds, with drawers and a gorgeous countertop and it was hot pink and white. And the room had a hotpink dresser that they clearly brought in, and beautiful white headboards and hotpink and pale pink throwpillows, and beautiful curtains, and a coordinating rug and the girls had color coordinating towels hanging in the room, and just the whole thing was so done up. I mean, it looked gorgeous. But all that stuff for one year! It doesn’t matter that I could probably afford to buy all of that. It just seems… excessive.
Anyhoo, sorry for the tangent. You happened to hit on something that’s been on my mind for the last few days.
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Yes. All of this is why I’m not even pretending to ask S25 to be home the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It’s the Clemson-USC game. It’s not at Clemson, so I don’t even know if he’ll be able to get there or get a ticket, but I’m sure he’ll want to be with school mates… and I 100% imagine he would still be mad that many years later!! 
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This is such a southern college thing. You’ve probably seen the Ole Miss dorm rooms – they’re over the top. It’s one reason why my D26 is drawn to nerdy schools like RIT and WPI and wants to get the heck out of the south – she doesn’t think the southern school vibe is for her. (And she actually loves decorating and will talk at length about aesthetic, but even still.)
But guys don’t really do that, right? There’s a running joke about how guys just put up a school flag and call it done. Indeed, that is what my S25 is doing – I bought him 100% cotton sheets and blankets because he sleeps hot, plus a Wowmax headboard pillow because D22 absolutely loves hers. Otherwise, school flag and done, LOL. (He does have a single, so no one to coordinate with.)
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Yeah, I’ve seen the reels and posts at other southern schools. It just, unfortunately, plays right into my stereotypes and the reasons I didn’t like the school for my kid. It’s clearly a trigger for me and I need to get past it and ignore it. So much of Big Southern Sports School is not me and I thought I’d made my peace with it, but clearly not. (Like I just read the guide the newspaper put out for freshmen, and it has a lot of “things to know”. And included in that is that freshmen men should wear orange polo shirts and golf shorts or khakis to football games. Really? Polos and khakis to football?)
Anyhoo, no, it doesn’t seem like guys do all of that decorating, so it’s not like he would even want all of that business. He’s got sheets and a blanket that are grey, because grey goes with everything. Last year when we were on vacation he found some funny small vintage poster prints that he liked - I’m thinking those will be his “decor”. The closest I’ve come to something school theme oriented is buying him a purple pool noodle to put on the underside of his loft so he doesn’t bonk his head…
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The schools all differ somewhat – but it’s pretty common to dress up for football games in the south.
Regardless, I promise you he’s going to have a great experience there. The Clemson kids really love their school.
(My D26 has a good friend starting at Clemson this fall – her middle school boyfriend, lol – he’s a marching band kid but not sure if he’s planning to march.)
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I think you kind of can’t win for Thanksgiving travel. We bought tickets early (since the dorms close at UMD for TG break on Tuesday evening at 7pm - this is a new thing for my family; no other college we’ve associated with has done this) - and Jetblue changed its flight schedule so now DS is going to have to miss class.
I am hopeful that the flight may change again, or professors may cancel Tuesday afternoon classes since break starts that night for students with no staying over until Wednesday. (I think that for international or homeless or otherwise needy students, they probably have housing available, but not in the regular dorm situation.)
BTW the foam board and/or sandwiches sound very nice and celebratory for graduation. We went to DS’s graduation and spent the day with family, but that was it. Oh, and I guess we’re going to shop for an ipad as a gift at some point soon. So you’re ahead of the game!
Random aside - my S22 loved using his iPad and apple pencil for most of his work. He had a big desktop computer that he built, but the iPad was his daily take to class for notes and some assignments. His junior year he ended up buying a laptop because he sometimes wanted something portable for group projects and he needed the power to do some assignments that couldn’t be done on the iPad. But overall, he loved the iPad and I think he still uses it for notes.
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Thank you! DS thinks that he will do exactly that 
I do believe that D25’s roommate is on full scholarship (instate and in a top percentage of her class I think). And she is first kid. Their second kid just signed on a basketball scholarship for next year. So they may have a bit more wiggle room with finances than I do.
D25 and her roommate have agreed not to match sides. Each agrees to show their own personalities and such.
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I sometimes get pushed this sort of content on facebook from groups I am not a member of and it is SHOCKING. These folks live in another world, and I don’t mean money levels.
Honestly, I have seen nothing even come close to any of it at my kids school’s parents page (probably helps it is pretty STEM focused and heavily male) thank goodness…
And yes I am being judgy:)
Nor do most gals.
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