No apologies necessary. And being gaslighted and emotionally abused by your family is a pretty legitimate reason for not showing up for Thanksgiving dinner. I will say that moving 3,000 miles from my AM's family was a huge step in me finding my own recovery. Unfortunately, I was still saddled with a problem (myself, and all of my baggage), and it took a couple of incidents for me to start doing the real work.
I see things so much more clearly now, and you will too soon enough. I hear people say, "I'm going to have to listen to [family member] about this." Especially in my XH's family. They have the nutjob family monarch who everyone bows down to. She hates me because I never bought her bs. Anyway, whenever XH posts a picture of work (he's a lineman for the cable company, so there are a lot of pics from up high on the poles) or something crude or snarky, his sister always whines that she's going to hear it from grandma. But she says she HAS TO. You don't HAVE TO do anything. You aren't obligated to show up, talk to anyone, or shoot, even let them know how to find you. It's really liberating, honestly. I told the XSIL once that she could just hang up whenever grandma launched into a diatribe, and you would've thought I'd told her to kill her own grandmother. Seeing codependency through recovering eyes is a breakthrough.