Thanksgiving woes.

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So, Thanksgiving has crept up on me once again. I live several hundred miles away from my family, and due to my line of work and my rigid and uncaring boss, I will not be able to make the trip up to see them. It doesn't really bother me too much, but my Thanksgiving with my family is actually pretty mellow as far as holidays are concerned. My father, my siblings, and I sit down for a nice relaxing dinner, and just lounge around shooting the proverbial s*** for a few hours. It's nice.

Since moving out of state, I have only managed to go back to visit once or twice a year, and often spend my holidays at home alone, since my fiancee spends her holidays with her family, who lives much closer than mine. I am always invited to spend my holidays with them, but every event that I have attended in the past has been an aspie nightmare. Anywhere from 15 to 100 people will be there, depending on the event. All of them have a lot of catching up to do, so there are always dozens of simultaneous conversations, each new conversation louder than the others, because that's the only way to ensure that anybody will hear you. If you have something to say, you have about ten seconds to get it out before somebody cuts you off. If you're a newcomer to the family, everybody wants to know all about you, so you end up answering the same questions about yourself every ten minutes for as long as the event lasts. Suffice it to say, it hasn't been an accident that I have not attended many of them in the past couple years. For some reason, I let my fiancee talk me into coming to Thanksgiving this year, and I'm freaking out. During her last trip home, she talked to her family about my AS and why I haven't been coming to holidays with them, which I very much appreciate her doing since I'm fairly certain they thought that I was being rude and hated them. I don't want them to change their family holiday for everybody just to accommodate me, but at the same time if it stays the same I won't want to go. Already, the prospect of spending almost 72 hours away from home, with no safe spot, surrounded by loud people lining up to interrogate me has me pretty nervous. A month ago, when I agreed to this, I was alright with the idea. Now, I'm losing my mind. Does anybody have any experiences or advice that they would be willing to share with me on anything that I can do, or any way that I can handle this type of situation?

Be greatful, they now know you have AS and they still accept you. These loyal strangers care about you. I would say do this. Go...and when it gets overwelming excuse yourself to a private room to catch your thoughts and take a break. Give yourself about 10-15 minutes then go back out. Stay for a bit, then take a break. Have your fiancee ask ahead of time where you can go to chill, and then do this. Try really hard though not to take a break during actual meal time, but if you must, well then you must. But I'd say try really hard not to. Also maybe intead of going to a private room you can take alittle walk if you'd like. My family does this, someone always going for a walk after the meal, or someone turning on the TV or relaxing somewhere....ALL ARE N.T's. So you aren't so off or as unusual as you might think you are. You're just being honest.

My husband and I have decided to skip out on the extended family festivities this year because it's just too much for us to handle. We're going camping with the family that we really care about, our dogs, yay! I'm going to precook a real Thanksgiving meal (turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, apple pie, etc.) and we'll just heat it up with our campfire or mini-stove. I think it'll be the best Thanskgiving ever.

NOW THATS THE BEST THANKSGIVING YET.......I wanna come. Actually my mother in law is very ill so for 3 thanksgivings we are all actually very surprised she's still with us. But thats her, she'll die when she's good and ready and not before. But I think you are going to have alot of people saying just like me....I WANNA COME. And if everybody showed up then that will defeat the purpose of a small, nice and cozy Thanksgiving. But hey...everybody will be in the same boat.

Haha, I knew other people would think it'll be cool.

I'm just hoping the weather will be decent. It's supposed to be 76 degrees during the day on Thursday and get down to 44 at night. It should be perfect day hiking weather and it'll be a good two dog night in the tent!

That's good for you, Belle. It's not actually relevant to my question, but good nevertheless.

Yeah, sorry about that Knightmare...I tend to suck at offering advice and can only think of things to talk about that pertain to me. I guess I'm a good thread hijacker.

I plan on not checking email, shutting of my IM and disconnecting the phone Wedneday Evening until Fridy Morning.

I don't want to hear about how people are having fun with their families - it just causes depression.