LINCOLN, Neb. — In 1999, I had been a freshman in college in upstate New York for maybe two weeks — it was still September, no one had gotten winter jackets out yet — when my classmates started booking their flights home for Thanksgiving. They couldn’t wait. They regaled me with stories of family traditions and exotic-sounding food I’d never tried (cranberry sauce) and in some cases never even heard of (green bean casserole).

I hadn’t been planning to go anywhere, and certainly hadn’t budgeted for it. My Miami-based Cuban family didn’t normally celebrate Thanksgiving, although we did try to make a turkey once, a mistake we’d never repeat.

I was the first person in my family to go to college, so I already felt different from my peers in large and small ways. But their excitement about the break took that feeling to a new level. The trip home to Miami was too pricey for me, and in late November the semester was, technically, almost over, but learning that the default for most college students was heading home made me change plans. I wanted to be a typical college student, too.

I used a new credit card to book a last-minute flight to Miami and showed up, without warning, at my parents’ house. They were thankfully happy to see me, but couldn’t understand why I came, saying with a shrug, “Oh, well, I guess we better do a Thanksgiving now.”