Your Thanksgiving Stories, Anectodates and Silly Stuff (SASS)

[Ferret_Herder]

@FairyChatMom

In cases like this, I’d probably be inclined to lie. I’d never try it with someone I either didn’t know or someone who truly had food allergies or other issues, but randomly picky eaters make me crazy. One of my sisters is like that. She asked me once if I put onions in a certain dish. I lied. She ate it. She liked it. She suffered no ill effects. But if told her about it today, over 30 years later, she’d retroactively start to puke. :rolleyes:

I have no patience with food drama.

It is drama, too. I’ve been a vegetarian for 20 years, for a variety of reasons. She’s just trying on the “diet of the week” and is skinny as a rail. She eats all types of food at other times. (My WAG: Since it’s Thanksgiving, all non-health-issue diets will be forgotten about.)

Thanksgiving mishaps:

Getting a ~27-ish pound turkey and realizing it would present issues in fitting it in the brining bucket (just barely fit diameter-wise), and only when it came time to flip the turkey halfway through roasting did I really appreciate how tough that would be to do with such a big bird. Plus it hung out over the sides of the roasting pan somewhat, so I had to use foil as a baffle to keep drippings in.

Another time, we had a warmer-than-expected evening (mid-40s+) and I couldn’t keep the turkey cold enough on the enclosed-but-uninsulated back porch for brining. I had to throw on a jacket and go out after 10 pm - in my sweats - to a nearby gas station to buy ice.

[PapSett]

Not a happy, funny story, but a Thanksgiving I will never forget.

It was 1978, my first Thanksgiving as a horse owner. I had him boarded at a stable owned by an equine veterinarian. My family had out dinner early in the day, and after, I made my horse up a special treat of cereal, cut up apples & carrots and molassass. I spent time with him, playing in the arena, grooming him, and just being thankful for him. Then the vet came out and asked if I would mind helping him for a moment. I followed him to one of the ‘hospital stalls’.

In it was a beautiful yearling Thoroughbred filly with a seemingly minor cut on her forehead. But she was down in the stall, drenched in sweat and convulsing. See… her owners had thought giving her a tetnus shot was unnecessary, so they saved the ten bucks and didn’t give it. She had cut her head, and tetnus had indeed set in.

She was dying.

And they would not allow my vet to euthanise her because she was insured, and statistically, there is a 15% recovery, so if she was euthed while there was still a ‘chance’, they would not get their insurance pay-out.

For the next hour or so, I did what I could to help, handing him what he needed, putting fresh shavings around her to absorb her sweat and just listening to Greg (my vet) talk about what a waste it was and how he wished he could end her suffering.

I will never, never forget how when she convulsed, her neck bent backward, over her back, at a seemingly impossible angle.

Before I went home, I went back to Star’s stall and I cried on his neck, and swore I would NEVER skimp on that tetnus shot. Never did, either. That was also theday that I decided there was not enough money in the world to make me become a vet. Love of animals is not enough; you also have to deal with their owners, and you are not allowed to slap sense into them.

[Dr.Girlfriend]

My dad was born on Thanksgiving. He hated turkey with a passion, Mom would say that it was because it would be cannibalism if he ate it.

We used to have Thanksgiving dinner at my paternal grandparents’ house. My grandpa’s sister and her two daughters would come for dinner, it was about the only time we ever saw them.

The youngest daughter was a bit “friendly” with the local hockey team. One year we all sat down for dinner and “Laurie” announced she was pregnant. “I don’t know who the father is,” she says. She goes on to list the different hockey players who could possibly be the father.

Grandma is sitting at the table looking like this: :eek: Laurie’s mom looks like she wants to slide under the table and hide. Grandpa turns off his hearing aids and continues eating. Smart man.

[cwthree]

During my only year in grad school, my then-spouse and I decided not to travel across the country to my parents’ home for Thanksgiving. We didn’t have any friends in town, so we hadn’t made plans to have dinner with anyone. We *also *hadn’t made any particular plans to make dinner at home. Somehow, we assumed that there would be restaurants open on Thanksgiving day in a smallish midwestern town. We drove around town that even, looking for someplace to get a semi-festive dinner. We finally found a pizza joint that was still open, went in and picked up a pie, and ate pizza at home for Thanksgiving.

[Mama_Zappa]

@Seanette

Quick tip: if you use oven bags for turkey roasting (which I highly recommend. No, the skin doesn’t get picture-pretty, but the meat is wonderful), do not also cover your roasting pan. One year, I nearly served turkey sashimi as a result of this mistake.

:::snerk::: And when you want to remove the turkey from the bag, just cut the bag - don’t try to lift the turkey out of it somehow. Otherwise you may have to invoke the “15 second rule” as my mother did the year she tried it :D.

[Dendarii_Dame]

For a change of pace, here’s a Thanksgiving story about a decoration:

Years ago, my son’s class made construction paper turkeys. You traced around the child’s foot for the body and around the hands for the tail feathers, add eyes, a beak, etc., and you’re set. Just the thing to tape to the inside of the front door, which is what we did.

It looked rather nice, and my son asked if we could keep it up after the holiday. “We can keep it up as long as you want,” I said.

His eyes gleamed. “The turkey will stay up forever!”

And it’s still there…

[Count_Blucher]

The first year that I was really into photography as a kid, I had asked for a camera for my birthday. I got one, but it was a Polaroid camera. The film cost me a mint so it basically got shelved. Around Thanksgiving, when I was taking some candids,
I got reminded that I never used that camera. So, I dug it out dusted it off and decided to walk around and take some more candids.

At one point, my sisters were helping my mother with the turkey and I thought it would make a good picture: women in a kitchen interacting around food. To get a more natural and less staged picture, I had decided to move into the doorway quickly and to take a surprise shot
(I still think candids are 1000 time better than lining people up to say “cheese”). At the time, one of my sisters was in the middle of stuffing the turkey. When I snapped the shutter, she was both looking at me surprised and had her entire arm, up to the elbow, inside of that bird.

It took 2-3 minutes for it to develop and maybe 2-3 people saw that picture before Sis destroyed it. Its been many Thanksgivings since then & she’s the one sister I still keep contact with. We are on great terms… but… I’m not sure that I was ever quite forgiven for taking that picture…

[evasgram]

My ex-husband was in the Army. He was stationed in Germany, our two kids and I were there with him. One Thanksgiving, he was out in the field until that morning (or so I thought), and then came home in the afternoon for our family dinner and celebration. Oh, happy times, daddy’s home! Well, not so much. Shortly after he arrived, one of his sergeants showed up at my door to make sure the kids and I were ok. I was confused by what he meant until he informed me that my loving husband had been with his girlfriend for the last several days and he wanted to make sure we were going to have a nice dinner despite the fact that he wasn’t there (sergeant didn’t know hubby had actually bothered to come home). So, I went a little crazy, hubby left, kids and I ate turkey.

[flatlined]

@Dendarii_Dame

<snipped>It looked rather nice, and my son asked if we could keep it up after the holiday. “We can keep it up as long as you want,” I said.

His eyes gleamed. “The turkey will stay up forever!”

And it’s still there…

That is so cute

[Spiderman]

When we got married, my Mom said she was tired of cooking for all of the holidays & we needed to pick one. We chose Thanksgiving. The first couple of years there was some electrical disaster.
Year 1 - the bottom element in the stove broke. The skin on the top of the turkey was browned to perfection, the breast was at the right temp but when it was pulled out, we found out the dark meat was still raw.
Year 2 - blew a fuse…over the dining room table. It was an, um, ‘romantic’ dinner for 8. We were in an apartment & didn’t keep spare fuses as that was maintenance’s job.
Despite that, we continued to have guests in later years.

[swampbear]

@Spiderman

When we got married, my Mom said she was tired of cooking for all of the holidays & we needed to pick one. We chose Thanksgiving. The first couple of years there was some electrical disaster.
Year 1 - the bottom element in the stove broke. The skin on the top of the turkey was browned to perfection, the breast was at the right temp but when it was pulled out, we found out the dark meat was still raw.
Year 2 - blew a fuse…over the dining room table. It was an, um, ‘romantic’ dinner for 8. We were in an apartment & didn’t keep spare fuses as that was maintenance’s job.
Despite that, we continued to have guests in later years.

A new twist on holiday traditions. Let’s see what blows up at Spiderman’s place this year. The family takes bets and forms a pool. A lamp blows up. Uncle Joe jumps up, pumps his fist in the air and says, “YES!!! I win!!!”