Traveling for Thanksgiving: What We Read

I have family who lives far away, so every year, my family goes to visit them for Thanksgiving. They’re not far enough to merit a plane ride, so we road trip it on up. It’s a long car ride, and since I was small, my parents have been trying every tactic under the sun to keep my brother and I occupied on the journey.

I don’t know how many years ago now, my parents discovered Louisa May Alcott’s short story An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving. There’s a surprising dearth of good Thanksgiving short stories out there – but this one is a staple for my family. Somewhere in the middle of the car ride, my mom will take out her Nook and read it to us. We used to borrow a copy from the library. After a few years, we tried to order it online – and it worked – except that the copy (though beautifully illustrated) was an abridged version. The pictures were great, but we really wanted the story in its entirety. And for some reason, that ended up being a more difficult endeavor than it sounded like.

Eventually, we acquired a digital copy of the book, which worked for us.