It is 4:30 a.m. on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I am huddled over my laptop at LaGuardia Airport.  I have now been awake for approximately 20 hours, and I have hours and many miles to go before I sleep.  I am homeward bound for the holidays, and to keep me company, I have some well-known writers and their tales of holiday gloom and woe.  The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holidays is a darkly comic anthology of the best tales written by all of your favorite sarcastic writers, centering around the trials and tribulations associated with the holiday season.   The combination of the flickering florescent lights, the lack of sleep, a jittery caffeine-induced buzz, and the words on these pages is creating a false sense of terror and dismay for me in this eerily quiet airport.

As I finish up a story written by Chris Radant about her torturous journeys home for the holidays each year, I am disrupted by the angry shouting of this morning’s token crankster. Apparently she is none too happy that our flight has not begun boarding yet.  It is clear, though, that nothing would make this woman happy — they could announce that, to apologize for the delay, this morning’s flight will come with a gourmet breakfast cooked on the plane while we are serenaded by Josh Groban singing Christmas carols from the 10^th row, and she would still throw a fit that we aren’t boarding yet.  I wonder if perhaps this woman is on her way home to see a family she doesn’t like, just like Ms. Radant.  Ahh, that explains the bad attitude.

Twenty minutes before scheduled departure and we are all invited to line up for boarding — all of us.  No organized groupings or sections — we all just mad-dash it toward the door.  I don’t take this as a good sign, for it usually means the plane is less than tiny.

I am correct.  At the end of the boarding ramp, a bus is waiting rather than a plane.  We will now be bussed to our plane.  Cranky Lady just put the driver in a headlock and is threatening to “really lose it” if he doesn’t go faster.  It is going to be a good flight.  I move on to a story by Jay McInerney about the tradition of angry outbursts that has become a staple at his testosterone-laden Thanksgiving table — a family of brothers, one of whom is a writer who wrote his greatest works based on the family’s torment…and eventually got the crap beat out of him when his brothers got fed up with having their family slandered by his “creative license.”  Note to self: don’t write about your family.

I finally get on the actual plane and walk down the aisle praying to the travel gods that my seat buddy won’t be sick or creepy or talkative.  As I approach, I see an unassuming blonde, already fast asleep.  Score! It is a holiday travel miracle!  And then the gentleman who will be sitting across the aisle from me finds his seat.  I use the term gentleman loosely — he is actually the tallest, broadest, most enormous human being I have ever seen in my life.  As he attempts to origami himself into a shape that will fit into the seat, I cower in fear that a stray hand might accidentally swing around and decapitate me.  He finally gets himself situated, one leg stretched all the way down the aisle to where Cranky Lady is complaining four rows ahead.  He quickly falls asleep, but twitches in his dreams, and every time he has one of these twitches, I impulsively throw my book in front of my face to fend off a potential blow to the jaw.  By this point, I am deep into a story by Daniel Blythe about all of the potential dangers that surround simple holiday traditions, from poisonous foliage to kitchen mishaps.  I think death by fellow air-travelers should be added to this list.

I land in Cincinnati and simultaneously finish The Dreaded Feast, closing out the whole epic adventure through travel and literature with the beloved words of David Sedaris.  I have now been awake for 24 hours.  I don’t remember what day it is, what I was doing a few hours ago, or even what I had intended to write when I began back at LGA.  This article has traveled just as many miles and mishaps as I have.  Within minutes of stepping off the plane, though, I already see an old friend who happened to be flying in at the same time.  I emerge from the gates to the eager face of my mother, waiting anxiously to wrap me in her tiny little arms for an extra-long hug.  On the drive home, I round the bend to see the beautiful sight of my city skyline…and by city, I mean Cincinnati.  My dogs attack me when I walk in the front door of my childhood home, and my little brother – bearded and smelling of patchouli — greets me with a headlock and an immediate playful quip.  I am home.

If a theme could be placed on The Dreaded Feast beyond the obvious, it might be associated to the age-old token, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself.”  I was endeared by many of the stories in the anthology because they often ended their dark tales of woe with a glimpse of joy in the fact that, good or bad, love it or don’t, family is family, and the holidays are the holidays…and there is something special even in the misfortunes and misgivings.  Tired and aggravated as things might have seemed in my travels, the feeling of familiarity and relief that came with my arrival in Cincinnati is all the holiday cheer that I could ever ask for.  The Dreaded Feast brings humor and light to the situations and tales that plague many people’s holiday seasons, but they also highlight the universality in the experience.  Let’s be honest, even the annoyances of the holiday season are a little special…and, as The Dreaded Feast reminds us, very funny.

The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holidays, released through Abrams and edited by Michelle Clark and Taylor Plimpton, is a perfect travel companion, a unique gifting idea, or perhaps just the necessary prescription that will carry you through if you tend to view the holiday season with dread and anxiety.  Personally, I love this season, but I’ll laugh at almost anything with a note of humor.  You have to either laugh or love your way through the holiday season…or both.  Pick up this collection and ensure at least the laughter part.