Boston Gal's Open Wallet

But holidays and family and mashed potatoes and turkey are about comfort. And the honored orphan doesn't really get to relax. Implicit in my invitation is a story that doesn't belong at their gathering, no matter how welcome I may be made to feel.

And it is a little sad, a holiday alone.

But it's also comfortable. I get to be honest, by myself.

It can be exhausting, matching the group's festive mood; people's feelings get hurt if you're not having enough fun at their celebration.

Alone, I don't have to make myself fit into anyone else's ritual.

I don't have to dress up.

I don't have to shake hands or hug.

I'm not asked to explain why I'm not with my own family this year, and no one makes a sad face and says how hard it must be.

Increasingly, America's young adults appear to be spending traditional family holidays with friends rather than – or in addition to – their relatives. Chalk it up to the high cost of travel or the increasing time young people spend on their own between the end of college and marriage. For whatever reason, people in their 20s appear to be blurring the distinction between family bonding and friendship.

"It's too early for this to show up as a verifiable trend in census data, but it's absolutely clear that with the extended rise of education and delay of marriage it is something that is occurring more than just anecdotally," says Stephanie Coontz, a professor of history and family studies at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

Last year, 8 percent of Americans shared their Thanksgiving feast with friends, according to a survey by Rasmussen Reports, an electronic public-opinion publishing firm.

When young professionals are still single, friendship networks and support systems are more important than they used to be, Professor Coontz adds. According to census reports, it's now common for men and women to spend more than 15 years of their adulthood unmarried, whereas a few decades ago, spending more than five years out of the house unmarried was rare.

Because of soaring travel costs, the phrase "home for the holidays" is taking on new meaning this year. In Carolina Margarella's case, "holidays" is now singular.

She'll see her family over Christmas, since she found a reasonable $325 flight home to Atlanta. As for Thanksgiving, she's stuck where she lives now, in New York. Last year she found a Thanksgiving fare in the low $300s, but this year she says everything was near $500 -- even though she started searching for flights in September. "I just threw in the towel," says the 24-year-old public-relations employee. This will be her first Thanksgiving away from her family.