What's the worst Thanksgiving you've ever had?

White meat... dark meat... both will be served. Thanksgiving.

My sister died at the dinner table.

Okay, to be completely honest, she had a heart attack at the table and was unresponsive during the ambulance ride to Cedars. She was pronounced without even taking her into the ER. As far as we're concerned, she died at the TG table.

Pretty much put a damper on things for a few years.

When I was 15, my drunk-as-a-skunk aunt cornered me after dinner (she literally pinned me in a corner), shoved her chest in my face, and asked if I wanted to "touch her butterballs." I managed to squeeze my way past her, and I made sure I was never in a room by myself for the rest of the day, but she kept leering at me from afar.

I told my dad (she was his sister) what she did, and I dunno what happened, but we had alcohol-free holiday meals after that. Her relationship with my dad was never great, but it cooled significantly after that.

R2, how old was your sister?

My Dad died Thanksgiving morning 2003.

Everyone canceled on me at the last minute. I spent the day by myself, and had a Swanson's Turkey Dinner frozen TV-dinner.

I thought that was bad before reading the other posts in this thread.

Not my personal experience, but my late father's mother died on Thanksgiving morning in 1936. He repressed the grief and could not understand why he hated the holiday until I was ten years old (in 1979). He actually had a breakdown at the table; he was inconsolable.

He died in 2009 at a ripe old age. He was almost 87.

Whoa - half the posts in this thread are about people who died Thanksgiving Day. And I have to add to that - my mother died at noon on Thanksgiving day. After we called the funeral home and took care of all those details, we sort of looked at each other and went "now what?". "What" ended up being going ahead with preparing, cooking and then eating Thanksgiving dinner.

I have absolutely no memory of doing any of that but I know I must have because everyone tells me I did.

Any Thanksgiving spent in the Navy when I had duty. Having to sit in that nasty galley with the other sailors and their fat, ugly wives and their obnoxious brats.

Any Thanksgiving with my Dad - I don't remember him being sober for ONE of them.

Only in the last few years have my Thanksgivings improved, mainly because I spend them with friends of my own choosing and NOT family.

Oh, and here's the icing on the cake to my story:

I have a cousin who is a couple of years older than I am, and apparently she came on to him to. Only, he obliged and she was his "first." I wanted to vomit when my cousin told me that.

r6, I hope you never talked to any of them again.

Never had a bad Thanksgiving but have had no Thanksgiving several times when away from the U.S. I was having a great time and there really was no thought of missing out on anything.

My uncle walked in on me mastubating before dinner. Are we going to start this thread again?

[quote]and asked if I wanted to "touch her butterballs."

What a plausible story!

How is it not plausible, R14? I'm assuming you're being sarcastic. How is my story not plausible, but the half-dozen people posting about relatives dying at the dinner table on Thanksgiving day are totally believable?

The year they took the gravy boat away from me.

Probably the one I'll be having tomorrow. I'm sitting in my hotel room tonight in beautiful Dahlongega, Ga. playing on the laptop just waiting for the pigout buffet downstairs tomorrow where I will be subjected to hordes of beasts eating as if it's their last meal, while I sit there picking at my food vowing I'll never to this again. I've only been here a few hours and I can't wait to go home.

R17, why are you there? Are you away from home?

r17, if you traveled to be with family then why are you in a hotel room?

He's with friends. They have for several years traveled to a hotel and spend Thanksgiving together and eat the hotel's buffet.

He explained this in earlier posts on another thread.

I was homeless, on drugs, with no money but a roof over my head while my friend was away. I had a pack of Newports and some saltine crackers. I was too proud to go to a soup kitchen. I got leftovers from friends the next day. Things are 100% better now. I cook or go to a restaurant. This year it's a restaurant with the BF.

Thanksgiving 2004 was the worst as my dog died during family dinner, my sister who was volunteering in Liberia called to inform us she had just been brutally raped, our grandfather broke his toe the day before and had been reduced to a wheelchair, and our next door neighbors house caught on fire.We ignored the fire marshals command to evacuate and spent all dinner worried that it would spread to our unit. It just wasn't our year.

Wow R20, you have an excellent memory!

I finally tried green bean casserole at a friends house and was rewarded with explosive diarrhea.

I'm 58 years old and I've never had the pleasure of eating green bean casserole. The times I've seen it it looked like beans floating in a sea of mucus.

Wow, R22. That is horrible. I'm especially sorry for what happened to your sister. Was it just one guy or a group?

Just about any Thanksgiving while living at home. I wanted to fold the nabkins and set the table while all the women wanted to know why I wasn't watching football with the men.

My freshman year of college...1999...I was going to school a couple of thousand miles away from home and it would've cost too much to fly home/back for a few days. The RAs in my dorm prepared a meal for the 15 or so guys who didn't have anywhere to go...and it was disgusting. I also didn't really want to eat in the facilities because there were pests in the common areas (roaches, ants). It was pretty pathetic...as was the group of guys with nowhere else to go (including me!). We all sat silently and ate our meals on paper plates while the RAs attempted to engage everyone in polite conversation. The event broke up in less than 2 hrs...the only guys who stuck around were those who watched a football game.

Posted this in the "Let's Pretend" thread but it is without a doubt last year's Thanksgiving.

My aunt hosted and I just don't see how she didn't do this on purpose. She made a dry turkey with no gravy, no side dishes at all, and no beverages save for water. She didn't even make the table.

We all smiled and ate what we could but my uncles later threw a fit that lasted all year.

I think her goal was to make everyone hate it so much that she would never be asked to host anything ever again.

My oldest sister screwed up royally on the one Thanksgiving dinner she hosted. In hindsight it was worth a bad meal because she's always been a bossy know-it-all. The fact that she was the engineer of her own comeuppance was the only mitigating factor.

What happened was that her husband (a smug and snarky yuppie along the lines of Dennis Miller) made a deal: a locally and organically raised bird in exchange for a free ad in the tabloid rag he published. He greedily selected the biggest one available which ticked off the turkey farmer. The day before the holiday when my brother-in-law showed up to claim the free turkey, the farmer told him he'd sold it and would give him two smaller birds of greater combined weight instead. He had no choice but to accept them.

Well, who knew that you can't cook two small turkeys side by side in a conventional oven? It turns out that the sides of each turkey closest to each other will roast perfectly while the outer sides remain largely uncooked. My sister made this appalling discovery about twenty minutes before dinner was slated to start.

It would be another three hours before we had a fully-cooked turkey by which time most of us had eaten ourselves sick on crackers and chips. As the afternoon wore on other siblings and their families, who had dined elsewhere, began dropping by for dessert only to discover that we dinner guests were still waiting to be fed. The drop-ins who chose to stay had to hang out in the living room while we finally sat down to an afternoon dinner at 7 p.m.

Not surprisingly many of side dishes went to the table considerably overdone. What was surprising was that the other half were entirely underdone. Everything but the turkey was either a gluey mush or crunchy pulp. Annoyingly, the only person at the table who got a decent meal was my vegetarian cousin (the one with lactose intolerance and fibromyalgia) who brought her own food in a microwave container.

My sister and her husband have gone to his mother's house for Thanksgiving ever since, and the rest of us enjoy the day without them.

Can someone explain to me why Thanksgiving dinner is, unlike every other meal on every other day (except maybe Christmas in some households) in the middle of the fucking afternoon??

Makes no sense to me.

Thankfully my family has some sense, and whenever it was just us growing up (not too often) we had it at normal dinner time.

R31, so we have enough time to arrange our own suicides after the guests leave.

Because there is so much food and people eat so much that day, that the one mid-afternoon meal takes care of both lunch and supper, hence having it midday makes it encompass both meals.

We eat about 3. r30 is right, it's both lunch and dinner.

R34, it's also fight time.

Maybe not so bad for me as a guest, but I think horrific for the family having the dinner. When I was in college, I went home with a friend to his parent's house for Thanksgiving. One of his brothers was mentally handicapped. Really very nice and gentle most of the time, but prone to outbursts. After we sat down at the table (and both sets of grandparents were there), my friend's dad asked everyone to take hands for a prayer. The brother absolutely didn't want to hold hands with anyone. One of the sisters (who maybe should have known better) demanded he take her hand. He stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs, "I hope a monster eats your pussy." Big moment of silence. A soft "oh, noooo" from one of the grandmothers. The mother started to cry. The father went on with the prayer as if nothing had happened. After the amen, we all began passing food and eating, but no one spoke for what seemed like forever. I just remember silverware clinking.

Thanksgiving 1993, it was my birthday, too, and I was raped....oh wait! That was my best Thanksgiving EVER!!!! Wrong thread.

Seriously? I was almost molested by my aunt on Thanksgiving, and no one wants to even address it?

Was she hot?

The thanksgiving where a buffalo and a swan broke into the house.

If you think Dixie Wetsworth from Cabana Chat on MadTV is hot, then I guess so.

I think my worst one is about to be tomorrow. I will be completely alone. My only real family, my mother, has pretty much disowned me because she doesn't have the emotional wherewithall to deal with the illness I'm going through. And my longtime on again off again boyfriend has been leaving me voicemails to tell me that he's fallen in love with someone else. Also, I'm nearly out of booze.

Wow, some of these are really sad.

My worst Thanksgivings are more on the humorous side. At least, the ones I remember. When I was about 12, we went to my father's mother's house for Thanksgiving. It was a real departure for us, as we didn't spend a lot of time with her and didn't really like her. She wasn't all that warm and loving. But she was cooking the best feast she could for us on that day. We were having a roast chicken instead of turkey. I assume because it was cheaper? I don't know. She was not poor but not rich.

Anyway, we were starving and waiting for some side dish to come out of the oven. The chicken was cooling on the counter and the doberman was in the back yard. He desperately wanted to come in and was banging against the screen door. We were literally five minutes from eating. I had no sooner said "the dog's going to break in" than the dog broke through the door, snatched the chicken off the counter and ran right back outside. We ate sides for Thanksgiving.

The other bad one was a few years ago. My ex and I went to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner. It was all friends, no family. We had just finished dinner when the hostess's father arrived with his wife. He didn't like my accent or my hometown and proceeded to insult me and call me a whore. I'd never met this man before and was nothing but pleasant with him when he decided to start insulting me. It was like I was a target.

It was clearly making everyone uncomfortable but no one would shut him down. I didn't want to make a scene so finally, after enduring about 2 hours of that, I made up an excuse for us to leave.

Aw, poor muffin. Where are you? Maybe the weather will be lovely.

R43, You should have stood up for yourself and called him out.

That dog shoulda been put down for that.

And thats another reason why you should carry a gun in your handbag, R43. I'm not saying shoot him, but wave it in his face if he gets uppity again. If he doesn't stop, ram it up his ass like Peggy Gravel and blow his bowels out!

Actually, nearly-molested-nephew, I would like deets on your cousin incident of...what's the opposite of wincest? Any theories of how she got so perverted?

cousin's* and *awaiting. Obvious typo but it is DL

My late brother was mentally ill and took sport in terrorizing his siblings by making veiled death threats...just enough to get the message across without being actionable as 'danger to self or others.' One year he went too far and I reported him. He was taken into custody at work and put on 72 hour hold for a psych evaluation, which he passed with flying colors. Now able to claim that his brother made things up, Thanksgivings became even more terrorizing after that.

"Also, I'm nearly out of booze."

R42 - that's actually a good thing. Take a walk. Go to a film. And pop some popcorn.

My mother, who had been given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer on Halloween (which made it the worst Halloween I've ever had), had what turned out to be a heart attack while we were having our pumpkin pie, and after a couple of hours of trying to rest and taking nitro she agreed to let me call the EMS. I ended up spending the night sitting up with her at the hospital, covered in gravy and preparing myself for her to die at any minute. As it turned out she held on for another two months until the cancer got her. She was tough!

I should also mention that twenty-five years previously I had been with her in the doctor's office when she was diagnosed with breast cancer on Christmas Eve (note: she made a full recovery and the lung cancer was totally unrelated.) The holidays are pretty much shot for me as far as magic and warmth. I just grit my teeth and hope for the best.

My drunken father story pales in comparison to some of the really sad stories I'm reading here. It almost seems like our LGBT brethren are predestined to have bad family holidays.

The year was 1621.

R48, My cousin said it happened the day of his sister's wedding (I didn't go - his sister is kind of a cunt). The wedding was in the morning and evidently she cornered him later at the reception in one of the empty banquet rooms (wedding & reception were held at a country club).

She came up to him rubbing her tits at him, much like she did with me and he banged her on one of the tables. I didn't ask for details of the act itself.

The woman is a drunk with a high sex drive and I guess her oafish husband is too fat to have sex with her. There have always been rumors in the family of her sleeping around (usually with younger men), and her one child (a son who is totally fucked up - don't get me started) looks nothing like her husband and he has never acted like a father to him...so I think everyone, including her husband, knows he's not the father.

While they were celebrating that "thanksgiving" in Massachusetts in 1621, the settlement at St. Augustine in Florida was already undergoing urban renewal and had celebrated a thanksgiving in 1565.

r38 needs therapy

Back in the early 80s when I cam out, it was my first Thanksgiving after, and all assembled at my grannies place with the entire extended family strewn over three dining tables, the core, the cousins and the little kids. At the cousins table were my sister, 8 other cousins and me.

After dinner, my aunt (a supreme cunt, and the one I will fly over continents for to attend her funeral)was in the kitchen washing dished with my mom . My aunt loudly and snydely asked my mother, "So Trish, what is it like knowing you're never going to have grandchildren with a gay son?"

And my mother, full well knowing that people were listening for her response, said equally as loudly, "Well, Dotty, to tell you the truth, if I had known how wonderful it was having a gay son, I would have skipped the daughters."

My sisters raised their knives...

It was a long afternoon.

My brother had died in a freak earlier that year. I had dinner with his wife and young kids and my mother at a restaurant cause no one felt like cooking. Mood very glum. His kids are now teenagers and have had a lot of problems...

Sorry, meant "freak accident."

1998...my younger sister died from a drug/alcohol overdose the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and I was overseas...flew home and landed Thanksgiving AM.........my mother is still mourning the loss and Thanksgiving with my family has never been the same.......

The first Thanksgiving after our Dad died. We loved him, but he had an orphan's issues with the holidays. After he died, Thanksgiving was calm and nice and we enjoyed it in between feeling guilty because we enjoyed it so much...

I had an aunt who always complained that we never visited her house for Thanksgiving. The year my mother relented, my oldest brother had just gotten engaged.

We arrived on my mother's schedule - an hour late. The dining room was bare. Long card tables were set up in the basement with vinyl covers and folding chairs. There was the drop ceiling, the fluorescent lights, the freezing musty tweed-carpeted floor, and the litter box. The food was cold and it was our fault.

I had warned my future sister-in-law that my aunt loved discussing bowel problems. She thought I was joking.

I sat on the same side of the table as my aunt - facing the future SIL.

My aunt started slow. When she brought up the problems the beans or brussels sprouts created in her son's colon, I raised my eyebrows at my SIL. My SIL kicked me under the table.

My aunt, getting more and more nervous (my mother never made a secret that she was barely tolerated), launched into stories about IBS, colitis, and colon cancer.

My underage brother snuck a ton of booze and got rip-roaring drunk and proceeded to pick a fight with our obnoxious cousin, ending with both of them throwing punches in the living room and shrieking at each other, while the horrified older relatives tried to calm things down. Needless to say, nobody stuck around for dessert.

"My Dad died Thanksgiving morning 2003."

My dad is going this afternoon, bout 4 or so. Don't tell him. I want it to be a surprise.

This happened many years ago--my roommate at the time had a habit of picking up crazy stray people, and for Thanksgiving he invited this mouthy nasty dyke who was already drunk at 2pm. She was grandly announcing that she had been out the night before "makin' babies" with random men in a bid to get pregnant. She insulted my partner's Mexican heritage,and he called her a cunt right to her face. She passed out in my roommate's bedroom soon after. Needless to say, the mood among the guests was a bit dour.

On a flight to Detroit. Nuff said!

My older brother and his seven year old son were killed in an accident, buried the day before Thanksgiving. Car hit by a train crossing unfamiliar tracks, which only had a warning post, no flashing light.

That pretty much finished Thanksgiving for my family. Almost 30 years ago. Began observing the holiday again about 10 years later.

This isn't about me, but an ex-boyfriend: he came out to his family at Thanksgiving dinner in college, and his dad replied "Well I think I might be bisexual." Needless to say the parents are no longer together. Sad.

When I was twelve my uncle was home from Vietnam. He brought a buddy with him. After dinner when everyone was either cleaning or zoned out in the living room in front of the tv, Denny found me in the basement playing with my models and he got me to jerk him off. He didn't come because any aunt yelled downstairs to come up for dessert and coffee. It was creepy.

[quote]My dad is going this afternoon, bout 4 or so. Don't tell him. I want it to be a surprise.

Are you the guy who plans to shoot his family with a cannon?

Off to some relatives I barely knew in Monroe MI - I was 12 - got my 1st period the day before TG - we had to scramble to find the necessary hygiene products - besides being introduced to that joy & cramps, etc, it was the fucking topic all wk end. At least nobody died!

Shush, r71. Do you know hard it is to sneak a cannon into a dining room?

My ex received a ready-to-eat smoked turkey from his father. He invited every friend he had over and only one showed up. When I arrived early I was shocked that he hadn't prepared anything else- just the turkeyjerky on the table amidst clumps of dog hair (there was always dog hair everywhere). He managed to throw together some overcooked couscous.

After a couple hours of noshing and chat, he turned to the friend and announced, "Well it was nice that you came"- a definite goodbye. The guy seemed taken aback, but also no doubt anxious to escape (as I did the relationship not long after).

R45, I was standing up for myself in a non-confrontational way but he was unrelenting. When I realized he was not going to stop, even though I was telling him to, we left. Afterward, all of my friends, even his daughter, contacted me to say how horrible the man was. So they were horrified but gutless. That incident really taught me a lesson about my friends. None of those people are currently in my life.

Now that I think about it, I was kind of pudgy then. Maybe he thought it was OK to pick on the fattie. Hmm. I wish I had been a bit nastier to him, in hindsight. He was a drunk, though. There is no arguing or fighting with an aggressive drunk.

I posted this before on some other thread, but Datalounge is much cheaper than therapy.

Three years ago my dad (a pissy soul) was dying of all sorts of cancers. Pancreatic, liver, leukemia, skin and on and on.

I took over the hosting chores, and found a dry brine recipe in the LA Times. When my father discovered I hadn't bought a butterball but was instead doing something with which he was unfamiliar, freaked out. He began screaming "YOU'VE RUINED MY LAST THANKSGIVING! YOU'VE RUINED MY LAST THANKSGIVING!"

Now that's a bit much to take in. Fortunately, now that I'm an eldergay I was able to scream back FUCK YOU! Then I went and had a scotch.

The part where I almost strangled him and put him out of my misery was when I served dinner, and he declared "This is the best turkey I've ever had!"

Cue the pillow.

I saw the recipe for that, r76 -- too bad Mom has problems with salt...

Any updates?

R76, I hope you don't mind me asking, but how much longer did your dad live after that Thanksgiving? Or is he still alive?

R74, glad to hear the resolution. Good on you for taking the high road, and making your life better.

Sorry, mistyped... Meant R75/R43, not

R55, your cousin fucked her brother on her wedding day, did I read that right?

my supposedly straight cousin just came out.

Why do people choose to make huge announcements when everyone is present, with no acknowledgements to others feeling or opinions?!?!

R83, tell us about it! Give us all of the details please(especially the responses/looks on the faces of everyone else).

(Rolling eyes at R83)

Sorry it's not all about you, hon.

Well, as I mentioned previously I and my group of friends attended our annual Smith House Thanksgiving buffet today. We specifically waited until 1pm as in years past the first sitting usually is packed with those with the express intention of eating at least $100.00 worth of food for the $24.00 they pay. I think they're afraid if they don't get there early all the food will be gone. While the herd had definitely thinned by the time we were seated there were still some farm animals of various breeds attempting to see just how much food their stomachs could hold.

I imagine by tomorrow morning the city sewer system in Dahlonega, Ga. will be overwhelmed.

R86, I checked out the Smith House menu. Sounds good (and fattening), but I couldn't get past the misspellings on the menu.

I spent a few days in Dahlonega, Georgia panning for gold. It was fun. I got some gold flakes and bits but nothing to retire on.

Yes R87 there is a stray "your" instead of "you're" on the menu (or maybe something else I missed), but if it is so upsetting to you that it stops you in your tracks, well then you simply need to lighten up. It's not that earth shattering. And for the record I can't remember all the misspellings I've seen on high end restaurant menus all over the country. In fact one I do remember well is the menu at Charlie Trotters in Chicago a few years back. Apparently someone thought 'tomato' was spelled 'tomatoe'. I pointed it out to our waiter and it appeared to go right over his head.

No, R82. My male cousin fucked our aunt on his sister's wedding day.

Smith House menu (no, I'm not a shill):

Menu sounds tasty... there are quite a few typos. Who wants to eat a desert? Sounds very dry.

My sister died the Tuesday before T-day. For some reason I felt like I couldn't touch the ground for days. I am afraid I was more than a little buzzy acting. People probably thought I was high or drunk but it was an emotional thing. My family is great at compartmentalizing so nothing changed the next year. I did feel for my mom, she told me years later that it had taken her about five years to finally come to grips with what happened. I thought she was OK so I didn't exactly reach out. When my dad died I made sure I was much more available for her. I made a big difference. My sister was profoundly schizophrenic so I felt she would have been relieved not to suffer, and she did suffer, anymore.

my dad died 5 years ago on thanksgiving. all i remember was everyone telling me he was gonna be ok but he wasnt. i also remember watching Elf on the way home from my aunts house... it was the only time i didnt find it funny. i now hate thanksgiving and all the reminders that come with it.

[quote]One of the sisters (who maybe should have known better) demanded he take her hand. He stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs, "I hope a monster eats your pussy." Big moment of silence. A soft "oh, noooo" from one of the grandmothers. The mother started to cry. The father went on with the prayer as if nothing had happened.

That would be my idea of the BEST Thanksgiving of all time.

How did anyone not laugh at, "I hope a monster eats your pussy?"

I wouldn't have been able to control my laughter.

Me, neither, r96!

That has got to be one of the funniest quotes I've ever seen here.

I would have laughed until I pissed myself.

Actually had three in a row- '90 aunt died the day before Tday, '91 uncle killed in acar accident the day before, '92 grandmother killed in a car accident two days before. Luckily by the next year I had been posted overseas (Foreign Service) so was in a completely different place with a bunch of folks I had only know for a little while- had a great time.

Good lord, r98. I think I'd avoid driving around Thanksgiving.

Back in the 80s right before my parents divorced I was a young gay in Dallas. Drank too much at JR's on Wednesday night and overslept the next day. I still would have made it on time to Thanksgiving dinner in Arlington were it not for an accident on I-30 that completely shut down the highway as LifeFlight arrived. I finally got to the house just as everyone else was sitting down to dinner. I explained the convenient but truthful reason I was late and my dad shouted back "BULLSHIT! I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!" Sort of ruined the day for me.

R58, your mama sounds like good people. And just think... she had to grow up with that aunt ("beloved cunt" as the Larry David typo went).

And, yes, "I hope a monster eats your pussy!" is a classic I may steal as a running joke. Truly LOL.

It is a classic. It mixes innocence with vulgarity.

Today...my sister had a meltdown and I ended up getting takeout at hometown buffet

bump

My Mom died the day before Thanksgiving in 2007. I don't think we has dinner that night at all.

No horror stories, but I had dinner once at my cousin's house once where everything was served tepid too cold

Picture it: Washington DC, 1978. I had just driven all the way across the country by myself and arrived the day before Thanksgiving (to start a new job the following Monday.) I was 26 years old and had never been outside of California in my life. Adjusting to the culture (and climate) shock of the East Coast was stressful enough, but since I knew absolutely no one there, I ended up eating canned soup in my temporary apartment on Thanksgiving. (This, after spending all of the previous Thanksgivings with my large extended family.)

And I stayed in DC for nine years and never once was able to travel home for Thanksgiving (too far for such a short holiday, and of course airports are a mess). I'm back in California now and appreciate being able to celebrate with my family once again (even though a lot of them have since passed on.)

[quote]I hope a monster eats your pussy

And two years later, the classics still hold up.

The one coming up. My partner's sister is hosting. No turkey, just antipasto/sandwich type stuff. She's hosting her husband's sister and family the next day and going to serve them leftovers.

I don't even know why we are going.

We may end up going to our friend's house later in the day. Or a bar.

I was so poor in 1983 I put grape juice in the ice cube trays for my Thanksgiving dinner. Actually, I didn't mind. It was the most peaceful turkey day ever.

The one I spent with Joy Reed. All she could talk about was The Grio.

Probably next week. My son has invited his current boyfriend and his ex-boyfriend. The ex is not a favorite of mine. I'm sure there will be high drama.

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on - two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the Restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the Church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin' in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of Room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin' all that room, Seein' as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn't Have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it'd be A friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So We took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW Microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed On toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the Dump saying, "Closed on Thanksgiving." And we had never heard of a dump Closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off Into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the Side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the Cliff there was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile Is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we Decided to throw our's down.

That's what we did, and drove back to the church, had a thanksgiving Dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the Next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie. He said, "Kid, We found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of Garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope Under that garbage."

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we Finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down And pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the Police officer's station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the Shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the Police officer's station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at The police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for Being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and We didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out And told us never to be seen driving garbage around the vicinity again, Which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officer's station There was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was Both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obie, I don't think I Can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car."

And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the Quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop Signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, Being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to Get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of Cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer's station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and They took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles And arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each One was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, The getaway, the northwest corner the southwest corner and that's not to Mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put Us in the cell. Said, "Kid, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your Wallet and your belt." And I said, "Obie, I can understand you wanting my Wallet so I don't have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you Want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangings." I Said, "Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?" Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the Toilet seat so I couldn't hit myself over the head and drown, and he took Out the toilet paper so I couldn't bend the bars roll out the - roll the Toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie Was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It's a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few Nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back To the church, had a another thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, And didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten Colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back Of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, And Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy Pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he Sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the Twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows And a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles And arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American Blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the Judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy Pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each One explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And We was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but that's not What I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street, Where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, Neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one Day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to Look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted To feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, And I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all Kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave Me a piece of paper, said, "Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604."

And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I Wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and Guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and He started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down Yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, Sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

Didn't feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin more injections, inspections, Detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me At the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four Hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty Ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was Inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no Part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the Last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, And I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got One question. Have you ever been arrested?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre, With full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all The phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever Go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten Colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on The back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want You to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's Where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after Committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly Looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father Rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And They was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the Bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest Father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me And said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench There, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I Said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, And we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, Father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the Bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of Things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it Up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna- Know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing- You-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting- Officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for Forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had Fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, And I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it Down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the Pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the Other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on The other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the Following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to Ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm Sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, Kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and Said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints Off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a Study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm Singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar Situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a Situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into The shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get Anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if One person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and They won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, They may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in Singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and Walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and All you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the Guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and Sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it For another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part Harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Excepting Alice You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant Walk right in it's around the back Just a half a mile from the railroad track You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

My father was one of the most pitiful alcoholics alive and he ruined almost every holiday in my youth, and my brother's too. Thanksgiving was no exception. Mother was the enabling martyr, always reacting to his drunken shenanigans with temper tantrums and tearful speeches about how she was going to leave him. But she never found the courage to do so. One Turkey Day we were supposed to drive up to her parents house for dinner and my dad got toasted. Like she didn't see this shit coming? Her oldest brother told her just to get Dads car keys and come up and stop whining. So we went without him while he lay sprawled across the living room floor. She never did leave him, but at least she learned not to let him ruin every holiday. After he died she became an alkie and so did my brother and so did I. But now I'm sober four and a half years and I don't celebrate the holidays with her or my brother. The last time I did Thanksgiving with them was twelve years ago. They begged me for money for booze the entire time. Today as a sober person I find other people to enjoy the day with. I don't know what they do other than get drunk or high. So so much more to life than that.

[quote] Can someone explain to me why Thanksgiving dinner is, unlike every other meal on every other day (except maybe Christmas in some households) in the middle of the fucking afternoon

Because it gets dark out early in late November. Some of the older people like to leave while it is still daylight so they don't have to drive in the dark. At least, that's why we had thanksgiving in the afternoon.

My mother was a waitress who worked every Thanksgiving. We were invited to my aunt's house one year when I was a teen. After dinner and a six pack, my father asked one of my little cousins to get him a pillow. He then laid down on the living room floor and went to sleep in the fetal position. I was mortified. He didn't wake up until about 11 pm.

My aunt was divorced and her older kids were married and having thanksgiving either at their own homes or at their in-laws. Only my youngest cousins lived at home. They thought it was hilarious. But I had to sit there for hours with nothing to do and nobody to talk to.

I hate Thanksgiving.

[quote]Can someone explain to me why Thanksgiving dinner is, unlike every other meal on every other day (except maybe Christmas in some households) in the middle of the fucking afternoon

On Sundays, we had our big dinner of the day at 2pm. We went to church and mom would start cooking when we got back.

r31 In my family, we start early, say 1:00 or 2:00 PM, and we're at the table 'til about 7 or 8. With THAT many courses, and THAT much food, it takes awhile to get through it all. Then there's the obligatory munching on leftovers, while we're still sitting around the table, talking, playing cards, trying to breathe,etc. Nothing exceeds like excess.

Thanksgiving 1978. I was 13. Many family members laughing and having fun at the beautifully arranged dinner table. My beloved Grandmother was laughing and her face suddenly lost all expression and her head tilted to the right and rested on her shoulder. She was dead - heart attack at 68. Very sad. I loved her dearly.

My first year at The Grio. I had to work all day.

My brother was a lunatic who would emerge from his bedroom and spew hatespeak at the dinner table. The holidays only gave him a bigger platform to make an impact and my parents just wrote it off as acceptable heterosexist behavior. When he returned from college it would get worse and would make grandma break out in tears because she had the nerve to ask him if he wanted potatoes.

He no longer surfaces for the holidays and I rarely do either as I associate Thanksgiving and Christmas as family screamfests.

I never enjoyed any holiday get-togethers growing up. My family (whom I am now estranged from - for the last 30 years) was nuts. Screaming, arguing, bickering and my drunk parents beating and slapping us for the slightest reason. I did not celebrate holidays for years and have only recently begun to enjoy them with friends.

We were driving to our cousin's in New Jersey in 1987 and it was snowing and we wanted breakfast and nothing was open except for this place called Annie Eatwells and they only had grapefruit juice.

It was AWFUL.

[quote]Because it gets dark out early in late November. Some of the older people like to leave while it is still daylight so they don't have to drive in the dark. At least, that's why we had thanksgiving in the afternoon.

In Ye Olden Tymes at least in the South Thanksgiving was much more of a community celebration, plus people didn't do much entertaining after dark unless they were rich enough to light the place up.

We regularly dog sit for some friends and Thanksgiving is a standing engagement since dinner is always at our house. She's a good little mutt but does love to get underfoot.

So after a couple of tiring days running around and doing prep work the dog decides to wake me up at 5 am on Thanksgiving morning to go out. I got up and promptly passed out doing a header over the night table and slamming into a wall. I'd thought I was just groggy and had tripped over her but later realized what had actually happened was that I'd taken 2 of the same blood pressure med rather that the one each of the two different ones I'm supposed to take.

I was banged up enough from that but we also had an early flight out of town on that Saturday. Major pain but I guess I'm lucky I didn't break any bones or worse.

Not a fun holiday.

My mother had the brilliant idea to meet some relatives halfway between our house in San Diego and their house in San Francisco. Santa Barbara or some other nice spot on the Central Coast would seem like the obvious choice, but they decided on .... Bakersfield. We stayed at a Clarion Inn and ate the hotel restaurant's Thanksgiving buffet dinner.

Later on some tweakers had a domestic dispute in the room next to ours, our car got broken into, and on the way home we spent several hours at a garage on the Grapevine because my mom ran over some nails on the highway and got two flat tires.

No one died at the dinner table, though.

R95, it's not the worst insult I've heard. Heck, any port in a storm, right, Cheryl?

Dykes are stupid.

I'm avoiding what could have been the worst one for me. My mom wanted me to come over, it will be her and my brother and sister, with whom I have nothing in common and haven't had a civil conversation with in about 20 years.

I "have plans". Which consist of drinking alone and heating up the pre-cooked Thanksgiving dinner I picked up today from Whole Foods.

BUMP for more Thanksgiving hell.

After years and years of horror at my brother and sister-in-law's home -- with them calling each other motherfucker and cocksucker, and any other vile word you can think of, then turning on their kids and shrieking at them in the same way; belching and farting at the table because they think it's funny; letting the cats wander through the food; I think this year may top them all. Some of their neighbors and friends already know they plan to move from Michigan to Florida, but I'm not supposed to know. Brother clued me in, but told me that sister-in-law doesn't want me to know. Said neighbors and friends who know are supposed to show up on Thursday. Looking forward to a FUN, FUN day!

[quote] My brother was a lunatic who would emerge from his bedroom and spew hatespeak at the dinner table.

My husband goes to his cousin's house on Thanksgiving. He pickets up p his crazy parents and schizophrenic brother and drives hours to her house. She is a crazy Israel-first neocon who loves Fox News, especially William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer. Her unemployed, late-20s son who lives with her has gone one better and is a Glenn Beck fanatic. He emerges from his bunker at family dinners and delivers Beckian rants.

I stay home. I did not grow up in a hotbed of mental illness and refuse to have one imposed on me during the holidays. Life is too short.

The only Thanksgiving i ever spent away from my family was with my crazy roommate in Santa Monica. She invited members of her Narcotics Anonymous group. They chain-smoked, didn't drink and their contributions to the feast were dismal. Roommate's mom and I hid in my room, drank lots of wine and watched holiday movies.

Why IS it that it's always the right wingers and FOX News junkies have to bring up all that shit at all family gatherings? Then they get mad when they are proven wrong.

My mom died a few days before Thanksgiving so that Thanksgiving was pretty miserable.

Well today is two days before Thanksgiving, so based on this thread, I think someone here is going to have a close family member drop dead today. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Well R136, my dog died last Thursday. Does that count?

Bump for more stories.

Sorry about your dog, R137.

R134, because they are recluses who have no friends and no one to vent their anger to. They wait all year to spew. Holiday gatherings give them a rare opportunity to have a captive audience for their practiced speeches. Truly pathetic. Do not argue or engage at all. That's exactly what they hope for. Just look at them pityingly, fake smile like you would at someone mentally slow, and change the subject.

R5 This will 10 years since your dad's passing. I hope you have happy memories of him and will enjoy the day.

I bought myself a Dominos pizza tonight. I'm putting it in the fridge, so that I can re-heat it tomorrow and eat it in front of the TV. I won't be seeing anyone, or even leaving the house.

Still not the worst Thanksgiving I've had, though.

r142 Domino's? Typical.

R143, there's shit pizza where I live, and since they changed their recipe a few years ago, it's actually the best of the chain crap.

Basically, it was this, or Little Ceaser's, and Dominos is a LOT closer.

$7.99 carry out special.

I wish we had great local real-Italian pizza places like where I grew up, but we don't, so I make-do.

I usually have wonderful Thanksgivings because my birthday is Nov 27th and in my family (only child, only grandchild) the holiday has always been about me.

However, last year was the first year that I hosted Thanksgiving at my house and it was fun and cozy and all that, but I noticed that my sweet, baby kitten of 18 years wasn't moving around very much and was totally uninterested in the turkey which was very unlike her. She died of a heart attack a few days later, at home, in my arms, being told how much she was loved. Then came the darkest December on record. I was a complete basketcase for the next five months and I'm still not right. I spent most of yesterday (my 40th birthday) bawling over the cat. It just got to me since the world looks the way it did last year and all the leaves are gone and I can see her little grave from my kitchen window.

[quote]This will 10 years since your dad's passing. I hope you have happy memories of him and will enjoy the day.

Thank you so much for posting this! I can't believe I saw it. I did think of my Dad often yesterday and they were good thoughts. My partner and I spent the day in NYC (we are here on our honeymoon) and we saw Phantom of the Opera. It was an emotional experience.

My brother and I exchanged warm messages via Facebook last night. I will get to see him, his daughter and his grand-daughter tomorrow night in Virginia at our cousins wedding. It will be nice to be around family again.

Thank you again for your post.

r145, I am so sorry your sweet cat died. I can tell from your post that your kitten was one lucky cat to have shared a life with you.

[quote]Well today is two days before Thanksgiving, so based on this thread, I think someone here is going to have a close family member drop dead today. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Well, Kreskin..it came true, except not a close family member (of mine anyway). My partner's sister was hosting today. Early this morning (3am) they got a call that her husband's nephew died in a car accident. He, his wife, mother, brother, aunt and another cousin were coming in to visit tomorrow.

...for your thanksgiving pleasure.

The tofurkey served by the vegan commune in Berkeley.

Who here has a drunken Uncle or aunt or grandparent? Everyone liked to hit the sauce in my dysfunctional family. My Aunt wasn't always content with just that and sometimes showed up fully high on heroin and would pass out on the toilet for a half hour. The Thanksgivings of my youth were more like wild parties. Even my Dad, who wasn't a heavy drinker, would have multiple eggnog highballs. The adults would stagger out at the end of the evening and me and my siblings would clean the dishes.

My dad died at the dinner table. That was pretty bad.

I know r96, who can say that mom wasn't stifling a bad case of the giggles?

Few years from now the worst Thanksgiving story will be how people missed out on all the bargains while shopping at the mall. No family stories, "the guy bought the last 52 inch tv set" "they ran out of stock." Such warm, endearing tales as we nod our heads.

In sum, Thanksgiving day is deadly

Will be going to the country club for a Thanksgiving meal.

I called my Mom the day before Thanksgiving to say I was on the road and woul be there in 2 hours. When I got there, the place was oddly still. Then I checked my phone, six messages. Called my sister, she said to get down to the hospital. Got there, Mom was gone. Happy Thanksgiving!

My daughter Nancy divorced her husband, while my other daughter Buddy thought she was a lesbian, while I awaited the results of my breast cancer test, while my son Willie complained about something other than being 30 years old and sponging off me.

Everyone behaved because our aunt had just died.

It was like the earth went off-axis.

Poor R150 having to eat Tofurkey. They should call it Tofuckyou.

My father died the day after Thanksgiving, forcing me to have to travel that weekend, something I never do. It was so cold, they couldn't bury him. I wish I hadn't gone. I'm from a a family that did not react well to my being gay.

I'm spending Thanksgving alone tomorrow. I've made Lasagne Bolognese.

a friend made a big deal about all of us coming over for thanksgiving, and that she was cooking everything, and not to bring anything. she had it covered. we all showed up, everybody sat down, and the food started coming out. soy this, seitan that, vegetarian everything. she had decided she was a vegan, and this is how she announced it to us. BY MAKING US EAT TOFURKEY. i vowed never to eat anywhere else again for thanksgiving, and for the most part i have stuck with it. i make a mean spread, people come to me. i am also a control freak, natch.

And rightly s,o, R161. Tofurkey. Tofuckoff.

She should have been shot, R161.

...and the "cheese"cake was WHIPPED TOFU, thickened with god knows what. agar agar or some such nonsense. what a tragedy.

it sounds like your vegan friend is the bigger control freak r161

My grandmother died a few days before the holiday and we had to spend it with her horrible relatives in her hometown instead of the loving side of our family we ate with for the past 25 years.

[quote]WHIPPED TOFU

Whoever serves that to human beings, or to animals, should be whipped.

last year. my father had died in 2011 of a massive stroke out of nowhere on Nov 30th. He was only 58. Then A little over a year later my mother 56 died of breast cancer in early Dec of 2012. My older brother had been taken from us in a tragic car accident in 2004. All four of my grandparents are deceased. I have one Aunt that lives in Virginia while I'm in California. I'm blessed with what I call family of friends but honestly it's not the same. Last year was hard realizing I have no immediate family left. It sounds stupid stating i'm an adult orphan in my 30's but it's the truth. I had no desire to do any thing last year for the holidays in general. This year feels much easier. I am spending it with some friends and it will be nice. I can finally smile again.

good vibes your way, R168. i hope you have a nice day with friends and good food. :-)

I made Thanksgiving dinner for me and my elderly mother who was dying of lung cancer. In the middle of dessert she had a heart attack, and I spent the night in the ER with her, covered in gravy and expecting her to go any minute (she actually survived another 2 1/2 months.)

r181, sorry you had to undergo that particular ordeal. This is vegetarian malpractice of the worst kind. My idea of a vegetarian (NOT vegan) Thanksgiving meal would be curried lentils with sweet potatoes with saffron rice, succotash, popovers, and a green saled. And if I knew there would be nonvegetarians attending I would prepare if not a whole turkey at least a turkey breast with the traditional stuffing (made in a casserole) and gravy. And lots of good wine, of course. And pecan pie and coffee for dessert.

ill let you know tonight

The one where I stayed on (a pretty much empty) campus at Penn State, during which week there was a murder:

On November 28, 1969, 22-year-old Penn State student Betsy Aardsma was murdered in the Central Stacks of the Pattee Library. Betsy was a graduate student from Holland, Michigan, on campus over Thanksgiving break of that year as she worked on a research paper.

She was found with a single stab wound to the heart after one or two men were seen fleeing the library, alerting desk clerks that a girl “needed help” in the stacks. She was rushed to Ritenour Health Center where she was pronounced dead.

.... No one could positively identify the men seen leaving the building, and the sparsely populated campus over Thanksgiving break provided very few witnesses.

Pennsylvania State Police have continued the investigation over the 41 years since the murder, but have not produced any viable leads.

Did the cops roust you, r173?

I can't rival some of these stories, especially with deaths, screaming relatives, and vegan fascism. And my Thanksgivings, at various places over the years, have been fine.

But one year I had nowhere to go on the holiday, and the opera soprano Evelyn Lear invited me to spend it with her family. This turned out to be at her mother's, with hordes of people eating on paper plates and no liquor, because Mrs. Lear was teetotal. Tom Stewart, Evelyn's baritone husband, parked himself in some unknown room to watch The Game, so I had no one to talk to. The whole thing was really terrible and I even had to bring some candy from Bloomingdale's when I was really kind of penniless.

It was a nice gesture of Evelyn's, of course. But I was expecting an operatic Thanksgiving--arias at the piano, anecdotes about Herbert von Karajan, and so on. Lately I have been spending the day alone. I get turkey white meat, stuffing, green beans, and the rest from a Whole Foods just four blocks away, and feel quite well served.

Thank you, R175, for calling your green beans "green beans" instead of "haricots verts."

Whole Foods cooking is pretty damn good.

This one, told two years ago, never gets old.

No, r174, and I wonder now why not! I recently bought two books on the crime, so maybe I'll gain some insight.

I wonder if JoPa and Sandusky and those sorts were involved, r174.

10 years ago. College. Me and my dorm suite-mate could not afford to go home for the holiday so we baked a chicken and planned a merger thanksgiving dinner. i go out to buy some beer and upon my return I catch him masturbating in our kitchenette. As i walk in on this event, it surprises him and he turns. I guess he was at the moment ready to cum and he turn toward the chicken (toward me) and shot his load all over it.

i had warmed up spam. he got drunk.

That is pretty terrible r181.

My favorite is the "I hope a monster eats your pussy!" kid.

My aunt didn´t want to divide her salmon with her nephew, then i stormed out her home to cry until past midnight while hearing fireworks (wait, this was not thanksgiving but new year´s eve, yet i love to be a drama queen just to have stories to tell!)

r181 So he was choking his chicken ON the chicken?

R184 broke the space-time continuum.

When I originally read this thread I felt terrible for the number of people who lost relatives on Thanksgiving, which hadn't happened to me.

Over the weekend I found out a dear friend who is like a mother to me died unexpectedly on Thanksgiving. I've been crying my eyes out all day about it. I feel terrible for her family that they lost her on a major holiday.

"I've been crying my eyes out all day about it. "

M-A-R-Y!!

In October I was diagnosed with cancer. Everyone in my immediate family is dead, and my partner works overseas. I don't know anyone here apart from the doctors and nurses at my hospital. I had Thanksgiving dinner by myself at the only restaurant in town that was open, which was Applebee's. The waitress had an upper respiratory infection which I promptly caught.

Even though the message in R43 is dated 2011, it still gets me riled. I woulda taken that old man's nutsack and stapled it to the inside of his asshole. Showin'up at dessert and treating a guest of his daughter's like that. Did she eventually apologize? I would cut down any mofo acting the fool like that. I would even defend someone I don't care for if that mess happened in my presence.

Was he cute R181? If so, I still would have eaten it and then sucked his dick for some more.

I was 13 years old and a child of divorce. It was my dads year for me to come up for Thanksgiving and we were going over to his new girlfriends family for the holiday, of which I had met none of them. About 5 minutes into showing up, my dads pager went off and he had to go to the hospital.

I was stuck at this strange lady's house w/her family and kids from 1pm to 10pm that night. The girlfriend and her family were nothing but cold to me and talked amongst themselves about my dad and then me while I sat in another room watching tv. Why they thought I couldn't hear them I have no clue. I learned that the girlfriend was only w/my dad for his money, and it seemed everyone in that family knew about it and was okay w/her doing this. I had asked to use the phone to call my dad at the hospital but they wanted to know why I needed to use the phone and when I explained they said he would be back when he got back.

When my dad finally showed back up I was pissed, but then the girlfriend and her family switched faces and acted like we all had the best time in the world. I tried to explain to my dad what actually happened but he thought it was b/c I didn't try enough and was being as he put it "off-putting."

R191, that is really shocking. What finally happened about that relationship of your father's? Did this girl friend last?

And what is worse than someone telling you that something bad that others did to you is your fault?

R186, sorry to hear. Please accept my condolences.

My Mom died on Thanksgiving Wednesday a few years ago. My brother-in-law and Grandmother died on Independance Day; my Dad & Niece on Memorial Day. The weird part is the burial and Church services can be delayed due to the holiday, so it's another day or three in limbo.

When the holidays roll around, it's good to shake it up and do something different, so it isn't maudlin.

my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew were snickering at my daughter at how she gained a few pounds during her first semester at college.

I'm talking maybe 10 pounds max, and she was probably 110 lbs before that, so I'm not talking obese.

Neither one of us have wanted to eat with them since.

I got into an argument with my older sister, who was being a serious bitch and snickering audibly at my elderly aunt for bringing Pringles to the party (okay, stop laughing, my aunt was 84). I told her to STFU, at which point she burst into tears and locked herself into the bathroom. Eventually she let my mother in, and then they both rushed past me to the front door - my sister ran out to her car and sat there sobbing while my mother turned on me and hissed: "Why do you always have to ruin everything?!"

I told her I'd go out and apologize, but instead I told my sister that if I ever heard her making fun of anyone like that again, I'd kick her ass and I wouldn't wait to do it in private. She drove off and then I told my mom that I just couldn't convince her to stay.

That was the last Thanksgiving I spent with my family (1996), and it is now known as The Year B. Ruined Thanksgiving For Everyone Forever. Even my aunt was furious with me. Go figure.

Some of you have had some crazy experiences. This was a fun thread to read.

I'm very sorry to hear that, R186.

6 months after my aunt’s husband had a stroke his inner racist came out.

Don't ask.

Are most of you early posters on this thread dead?

Probably, R200, Death on Thanksgiving is genetic.

Wow, so many tragic things happen during the days surrounding Thanksgiving.

My story's not so tragic.

About 3 years ago, I got on a plane to spend Thanksgiving back home with family. (I broke my policy about not traveling during Thanksgiving.) We waited for some late-comers so we could all eat together. The late-comers showed up already drunk. My sister started "poking the bear" with one of the drunk guys and I was just hoping he wouldn't explode (he didn't). I felt like I had gone back ten years in time, not much had changed. I'm back to my no travel policy.

I had been out of the closet for about two years by the time Thanksgiving came around 15 years ago. My family didn’t even acknowledge the fact. Basically thought it was a phase I was going through or would just be forgotten in time I guess. Anyway, I had one uncle who knew I hated coming home for Thanksgiving and why. On this particular year he told me when I arrived that he was going to make sure I had a good time and that no one would ever forget this evening. Before dinner, my folks liked for the adults to gather in the living room and talk about the years family events, show pictures of new babies, vacations, ect. The under 18 crowd would hangout in the basement watching tv or playing ping pong. As I made my way to the living room, my uncle winked at me and smiled the biggest shit eating grin I had ever seen. After about 40 minutes of the usual boring conversation, my uncle asks if he could put in a DVD of a recent “photo shoot” my wife. My aunt looked puzzled, but my dad said sure. My uncle then put in the dvd, but hit pause and mute before the first frame came up. My uncle turn to my aunt and said “I’m thankful that you have always put others needs ahead of your own and that I can share your kindness to others with our family”. He then takes the remote and hits play. For the next ten minutes or so, we see my aunt, nude, sucking a large hairy dick of a well built man in his mid to late 20s. Between mutual moans, my aunt begins some dirty talk and asks the man to feed her “hungry pussy”. Apparently my uncle had sit up a hidden camera in their bedroom and caught my aunt having some fun. As we sat stunned for what seemed like an eternity, my dad finally came to himself and ran to turn the tv off. My aunt burst into tears and ran out of the house. My cousin went after her. My uncle, feeling pleased with himself, said It’s time for dinner and walked to the dinning room. Shockingly, everyone got up, including my folks and sat down to dinner. As everyone ate, my uncle took the opportunity to talk about how “these dinner rolls are the hottest, most buttered rolls he has seen since leaving the living room” or “he’s glad that the turkey had been stuffed today and not just Aunt V”. He saved the best two lines as he was leaving and everyone was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Of course my folks had a cat as a pet. When my uncle saw it that day, he turned to my dad and said “be sure you feed her something, there are a lot of hungry pussies out there begging to be fed”. As he was walking out the door, he turned and looked at the stunned crowd and said “I hope young Jacob here finds the love I always wanted and thought I had until 6 months ago with V. I don’t care who he loves and neither should you because no matter gay or straight, love is something that we all deserve”. He never got over the affair. They divorced soon after and he drank himself to death. The next thanksgiving, he came to dinner but was a shell of himself. I brought my partner at the time and everyone treated him and me warmly. My uncle died about three years after that. I never saw him again after that second Thanksgiving.

It was the time we had our family Thanksgiving at our aunt and uncle's home. Most everyone had arrived when our grandmother asked my aunt why the oven wasn't on. She had put the turkey in the oven but forgot to turn on the oven. We waited for what seemed like an eternity for the turkey to cook. No deaths to report. Before anyone else does: .05/10

R201, didn't you feel like poking that bear?

Wow, R203, if that story is true, it's heartbreaking. If you made it up, good job! It was riveting. Next time though, insert a few paragraph breaks. Just hit "enter" twice at the appropriate places.

R203 I hope a monster eats your pussy this Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving 2013. My brother didn't show up because his God-awful cunt of a wife unexpectedly had left him. After their messy divorce he descended into mental illness, unemployment and dysfunction.

I went with family to a restaurant for Thanksgiving one year. We had reservations, and they were advertising. There was a huge crush of people waiting to be seated. But since we had reservations, we thought we'd be seated eventually. After a while we realized that someone had made at least 2 separate reservation lists and they were running out of food. The manager was completely overwhelmed and was lying to people about the wait, etc. Family still wanted to wait a little longer. Then a very elderly man KEELED OVER AND DIED RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!!! People jumped in and did CPR, but you could tell he was really, really dead. He immediately went into a stiff posture as he went down. We left after that and found another restaurant, which had run out of its signature cornbread by the time we got there.

But after years of hospital work and losing my mother to MS, I think the guy who died had it pretty good. He died in apparently reasonable health, surrounded by his family, and he didn't suffer. The restaurant manager should have suffered, though.

I’m nine years old. We’ve just finished this magnificent Thanksgiving dinner. I have (and I remember this part vividly) a mouthful of pumpkin pie, and this is the moment my parents choose to tell me they’re getting divorced.

Very difficult to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner once you’ve seen it in reverse.