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Thanksgiving at Fripp Island, SC, a houseful of friends. We brought the turkeys and left one of them in a soft-side zippered cooler on the screened porch to begin thawing overnight. Were awakened in the wee hours by screeching and caterwauling. A pair of raccoons had entered the porch, unzipped the cooler and had begun tearing into the turkey. One got greedy, and their fighting woke us up. Being exhausted, we simply wrapped the partially shredded turkey in plastic grocery bags and put it in the refrigerator to deal with in the morning. Unfortunately, by the time we woke up, another friend had risen early, seen the bagged turkey, and placed it in the sink to thaw properly. She returned after an hour to check on it, only to find a sink full of pink water and floating shreds of skin. Horrified, she rounded up the rest of the group to speculate on what in the WORLD might have happened to the turkey. They all knew we had been having trouble with my husband's middle-school-aged sons "acting out" in all kinds of unpleasant ways, and until we joined the party to tell the REAL story, my friends were convinced that the kids had finally gone too far. Fortunately, we had perfect little muddy raccoon pawprints on the top of the cooler to support our tale, and we laughed about the "Cujo Turkey" for many years to come!

Proud Texan and TAMU former student here (whoop!! BTHOtu!). LOVE Shipley's, but...if you can...travel up North on I-35, North of Waco, toward Dallas and make a pitstop at The Czech Stop in Hillsboro. Truly wonderful kolaches. Just sayin'. ;)

hmm...
Maybe it is because I am close to Georgia, and we tend to get the southern really sweet onions, like Vidalias. But, as long as they truly are sweet onions, I've never had a problem with tears while peeling and slicing/dicing them.

Now yellow onions, spanish onions, white onions, red onions, etc., they all make me well up terribly and the only thing that works for me, though it looks incredibly silly, is to peel and slice/dice them while holding a fresh whole slice of bread between my teeth and dangling it out of my mouth. Supposedly it traps the gasses that cause the tears from hitting your sinuses.

I don't know. It may all be the power of suggestion, and just thinking it would work prevents me from tearing up. But yeah, for any onion other than sweet onions, you'll find me peeling/slicing/dicing them with a slice of fresh bread hanging out of my mouth.
*blush*

Late to the party on this one, but here goes... about six years ago, my mom's new boyfriend came to our family Thanksgiving for the first time with his nine-year-old son. My family is fairly uptight, so this guy had everyone's eyebrows raised with his motorcycle-ridin', rock'n'rollin' ways. We're at the feast, the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are tolerating him, and our quietly formal Thanksgiving meal is proceeding, when all of a sudden during a lull in conversation the nine-year-old goes "Hey, Daddy, remember when I found cocaine on your dresser?" Completely out of the blue. Ensue awkward silence. The boyfriend finally musters a halfhearted, "I don't know what you're talking about, son," to which the kid responds, "Yes, you do! It was in a little baggie and you said it was Uncle Dave's." The boyfriend was speechless. The entire table cracked up, and someone changed the subject, but it was never forgotten.

That was not the last Thanksgiving we had with them, but unfortunately, nobody ever told any more drug stories.

I had made what seemed like a ton of turkey soup with the turkey carcass (prob 2-3 gallons in actuality). I was so proud of myself because I had started it immediately after dinner so by 9:00 pm it was ready to go into the fridge. The next time we opened the fridge to put something away, the whole stock pot came sliding out onto the floor. Gallons of turkey soup everywhere...especially nice to clean out from under the fridge. So NOT funny at the time, but now is a funny story. I didn't make turkey soup for several years after.

In the 90's my mom was wearing an angora sweater for Thanksgiving - you know the ones with little pieces of fur sticking out everywhere? While serving dinner, she leaned a little too close to the candle and lit her sweater on fire. Luckily, it burned quickly around the little tendrils, and not the sweater itself. Of course my uncle jumped up to help "put out the fire" but it really looked like he was copping a feel.

Traditionally, my extended family, 20-25 ppl, come to my home every Thanksgiving for a home-cooked turkey dinner with all the trimmings. I usually prepare ten to 12 dishes, all from scratch, including desserts.

Last year, as we all sat down at the dinner table to share the meal, my nephew's wife (who's own expertise at preparing a meal is pretty much limited to calling for takeout pizza), reached into her handbag, pulled out an Oscar Meyer bologna sandwich on Wonder Bread, and handed it to her 6-year-old son, as his Thanksgiving dinner.
I was a little insulted at the time, but now I laugh about it.

My funniest Thansgiving moment was the first Thanksgiving that my parents went away to visit family and my brother, his girlfriend and I had to make dinner ourselves. The girlfriend was determined to make her dad's famous stuffing and misread the recipe, adding many tablespoons of Bell's seasoning instead of a couple of teaspoons. Yikes!!!!!
Fortunately for all of us by the time the entire meal was finally cooked we were all too tired to eat so we put it all away and went back to bed.

While in desert storm I was a last minute adition to the KP roster. Pissed off I went and reported to the Mess Sergeant, since I was late it was determined that I would be doing pots and pans. I got even more peeved. So, dinner time came and I was dolling out peas to the masses when my buddies came up and and gave me the old wish you could join us for dinner routine with a smile. To top all of that off by the time we got to eat there was nothing left but Turkey rations out of the metal trays. After I finished I left to go back to my tent and sulk.Thats when the first soldier got sick. You see the real turkeys had thawed and refroze sometime during the trip and the turkeys became botchulism bombs. The entire camp(with the exception of the KP's who ate T rats) got sick. I couldnt help but feel like the kid on standby me who started the barfarama. That is what I call thanksgiving justice. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Thanks for all the great recipes guys!

Funniest Thanksgiving memory for me was when I make a casual comment about "Grandma's first husband" and discovered that several members of my family were not aware Grandma had a husband other than Grandpa.

A few tablespoons of ice cold water and cold, cold cubes of butter. Whiz with flour and salt in the food processor until the butter is about the size of green peas. Turn out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, shape into the form of a disc, wrap that sucker up and let rest in the fridge for an hour. Never fails.