What is your worst Thanksgiving holiday story?

Rating: 5 after 1 vote

We've all had tough holidays, and Thanksgiving can be especially hard since it's just a long weekend. Travel, family pressures, traditions to uphold, expectations of perfection -- something is bound to give.

Our friends at TravellingMamas.com are hoping you can share your worst Thanksgiving story with us. If you've already blogged about a Thanksgiving nightmare, all the better! Just post a synopsis here and a link to your blog. The moms over at TravelingMamas will read through this list and compile the "Mother of All Thanksgiving Nightmare Posts" on their site, linking back here or to your blog.

So what are you waiting for? Start venting and have fun!

Tags: thanksgiving

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Permalink Reply by TheBag Lady on October 28, 2008 at 7:22am: My worst Thanksgiving nightmare was a few years ago. I was thawing two turkey breast i the refrigerator. I had also worked all day preparing the bread stuffing, holiday mashed potatoes and cranberries from scratch. That night my husband notice that the turkeys were dripping their juice all over the refrigerator and on to some of my foods that were prepared. We had to remove everything and disinfect the refrigerator and decide what food could be salvaged and what had to be tossed. Not a good thing! We only tossed a few things and luckily no one went home with food poisoning that year!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Denise Mestanza-Taylor on October 28, 2008 at 9:01am: I don't know if my story is as bad as some of the others posted, but it's heartbreaking. Last Thanksgiving, I wanted to say a prayer and give thanks for all our blessings. My DH was annoyed that I wanted to say a prayer and scoffed at me for it. Then, my dad chimed in and chastised me for wanting to say a prayer before our feast. I was really taken back by their rude behavior, but more importantly what they modeled to our children. So, instead of giving thanks, we argued about whether it was necessary to say a prayer. As you can imagine, I became very upset and reminded them that Thanksgiving is THE day to give thanks and prayer is the means to which you do it. Despite my attempt to shame my DH and my dad, the damage had already been done and I found myself fighting the prayer battle with my children at the next family dinner.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Greenstew on October 28, 2008 at 12:21pm: 14 years ago my eldest son was ill and in and out of the hospital. Thanksgiving afternoon, I noticed his legs where selling and knew he would have to go into the hospital for lasix. So I called his DR, who said he would be on shift in 2 hours and bring him in then. Great I would have time to eat with my friends, all 17 of us. This was my friends first Thanksgiving and she went all out. So we ate, and I left to take my son to the hospital. On the way I have to pull over to throw up. When we get to the ER I handed my son to the nurse and run to the bathroom to throw up again. While my son was being admitted I kept having to run to the bathroom. So the ER puts an IV in me, and a few hours later both my son and I are doing better. I was in a hospital bed, he was is a crib right next to me.

The next day I found out that 12 of the 17 people from that dinner had food poising and had to be hospitalized. I was lucky that I was already at the ER and they were able to get and IV in me so soon.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Ditty on October 28, 2008 at 1:58pm: Boyfriend at the time (now husband), and I decided to go to a waffle house in Southern California for Thanks Giving. We got some funky food poisoning and spent the weekend hugging the toilet. We will never 'go out' for Turkey Day ever again.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Leah on October 28, 2008 at 7:53pm: Thanksgiving is actually my favorite holiday! My family lives close by, and we get together with some family friends who are some of my favorite people. :)

It is a day I look forward to every year - we eat good food, drink good wine, do a few silly traditions we've been doing since I was a kid (like sitting at the kids table even though the only kids now are kids of my friends and I), then play charades while we make room for dessert.

So yeah, no thanksgiving horror stories here. I LOVE everything about it!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Connie Brown on October 29, 2008 at 11:11am: We were suppose to head out to our family beach house but the roads were closing due to flooding. Our in-laws were already at the beach house and told us to come anyways. We ended up in traffic sitting for about 4 hours with our kids in the car before we turned around. Cell phone towers were out. When we got back to our house we called out to the beach house to find out it had been hit bad in the storm blowing out all the front windows, leveling several trees on the property and there was no electicity or water.

Our in-laws tried to come back from the beach house and meet us in town. It took another 4 hours waiting for them. So we ended up doing Thanksgiving very late in the day and impromtu at our house. Just when we though everything was better, the sweet potato dish I was cooking caught fire in the oven. My mother in-law had put aluminum foil directly on the heating coil to catch some drips and it was hot enough it caught fire. We were able to get the fire out, but the food wasn't very good after all the smoke exposure.

While it was the worst we've had, it was still great to be togther safe and sound.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mrs. Claus on October 29, 2008 at 1:54pm: A long time ago (so many years I can't remember correctly) we were having Thanksgiving dinner in the Dining Room. All 932 Elves, Santa, the reindeer and myself. I had just put all the food out on the table (and there was a lot of food). Just as I sat down something touched Rudolph's foot it scared him and he jumped up onto the table. (The same table with ALL the food on it). Well needless to say, all the food was ruined. But we all had a laugh. Turned out the "thing" that touched Rudolph's foot was a feather. (The elves had made some Thanksgiving decorations and used feathers, a few blew into the dining room).

Good news was that I had some extra food, so we cleaned up and I put out the food (had the elves check under the table for more feathers), and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving Dinner.

Now every year the elves ALWAYS check under the table for feathers.

Mrs. Claus; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tammy on October 30, 2008 at 5:58am: I've read worse... but here's mine....
A new couple down the block were alone for the holiday like us, so I invited them over for dinner. I also invited over another family in the neighborhood to come by for dessert when all the meals were done. Plan sounded good. Until family #1 showed up and my turkey wasn't ready. I had completely miscalculated the cooking time and by the time family #2 came over for dessert, we were all just sitting down for our meal, well into the night. It was VERY awkward having half a dozen people sitting in the living room waiting for you while you're eating in the dining room.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by jennyonthespot on November 3, 2008 at 7:15am: Definitely the year my drunk Aunt threw up in my husband's plate.

Definitely.

You don't want the details.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Elaine on November 3, 2008 at 7:24am: Thanksgiving of 2002 my little niece brought a stomach virus along with her to T-Day dinner (unbeknownest to anyone at the time!) and 12 out of 15 of us ended up with it. We were laid up Friday through Sunday. It was HORRIBLE!!! I mean we couldn't even enjoy left-overs! ACK!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by BuddynPumpkin on November 3, 2008 at 8:12am: That would have to be two years ago. I was excited about Thanksgiving that year. My parents who I had not seen in a few months were coming down for the weekend. I had recently found out I was pregnant with my second child and couldn't wait to tell them. When we told my parents I was expecting and they both said, "Oh." It was not exactly the enthusiastic response I was hoping for. Especially since I had recently confided in my mom that we had been trying to have another baby for almost a year with no success. Things did not start out on the right foot.

The weather was great that weekend and my parents took a long , uh, two hour walk. Dinner was ready long before they returned. By the time they got back everything was starting to get dry or needed to reheated. So much for making a delicious meal to wow my parents. The entire meal my mom negative about the food. "I would have made my turkey differently." "I don't eat sweet potatoes." "If I had made this it would not have dried out." "I would have served something else for dessert." I could not understand what her attitude was about.

The next day we took my parents to a local museum to see a fun exhibit on toys and pop culture. The exhibit focused on how toys have changed from when my parents were children up until today and how toys have shaped our culture. I thought this would be a great thing that everyone from my son up to my parents would enjoy. They had no comment when I asked them what they thought after leaving the museum. Okay.

My parents had planned on spending the weekend with us, but when we returned from the museum on Friday morning they announced they would be heading home before lunch. What??? They decided they wanted to do some shopping and were going to stop at a few places on the way home.

On top of the stress of trying to figure out why my parents were so unhappy, I had terrible morning sickness. Not my best holiday.

I never did figure out what was wrong with my parents that weekend, but I will probably think twice about inviting them to my house again for a holiday. :-); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Michelle R. Sadler on November 3, 2008 at 1:29pm: My Grandma died on Thanksgiving of 1996, but she lived a long full life and was finally at peace!; ▶ Reply to This