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Not necessarily my favorite Thanksgiving dinner, but probably the most surreal was the one I spent in Las Vegas. Keno in between courses, betting on the football games, the ability to have Chinese, Mexican, Italian, etc. food along with the traditional dishes. It's an American experience, I guess.

Some tissue paper from a present was sitting on the table and somehow caught fire from the lit candle. My cousin was holding the flaming tissue paper, unsure of what to do with it. She couldn't throw it outside, that would start a brush fire. My other cousin ended up stomping it out with his foot on the floor. We always joke it was the year we almost burned the house down.

One year my parents and I could not attend the Thanksgiving celebration with the rest of our family. I was about 16, and my mother had just had knee surgery and at the last minute was not feeling up for the drive. We live in Brooklyn and figured that it would not be so hard to find a supermarket open on Thanksgiving in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, we were wrong. The only thing open was the bodega around the corner. We scrapped our plans for an elaborate meal and made due with groceries from the small store. I think I made some sort of cheesecake bars from the side of the cream cheese package. It was a low key, but enjoyable Thanksgiving.

The best story is when my girlfriends family decided to use their second oven to get extra space to cook all of the dishes for Thanksgiving. They rarely used that oven before because it didn't seal completely so to make sure there was a good seal this time they used the cleaning lock on the door. Well when it came time to take the Turkey out they couldn't unlock the door! After a lot of banging, cursing, ripping the handle off the door and using power tools the Turkey was finally freed and came out beautifully.

After my daughter delivered her first child, she was blue and homesick. She lives three hours away (in Bloomington), but was too sick, and the baby too young, to come home for Thanksgiving. I packed up the car with all of the makings of a complete Thanksgiving dinner (with every dish she loved as a girl), including pots, pans, herbs, knives, utensils etc (young couple/first kitchen!). I then put my two younger children and my mom into the car for the trip. When we arrived, I found that she only had apartment sized versions of frig, burners and stove, only 24 inches of counter-space, and no dining room table! I did all the prep the night before (using the cooler as a counter) and managed to stuff a 16 pound turkey into that little oven. With some great timing, we had an amazing Thanksgiving with all of the trimmings...picnic style in the living room. It perked up my daughter's mood and there were tons of leftovers so she didn't have to think about what to cook for a week!

There was the time my Uncle Clark cut the turkey and it deflated.

having dinner on Thanksgiving w/ my brother at Uno's Pizzeria.

The first year I had a serious boyfriend, we decided to do both of our family's dinners. Of course, he was over six feet tall and could pack it away; meanwhile, I think I offended both families by eating pretty much one bite of everything at both meals!

my brother was going to propose to his girlfriend on thanksgiving, and he wanted me to put her ring in her piece of pie. i got distracted and gave her the wrong piece and my niece ended up chipping her tooth on the ring, boy was i embarrassed. my brother did not kill me, so everything turned out fine, and now it is a family joke.

My "favorite" food-related Thanksgiving story repeats itself every year: I get together with a group of friends -- same core group, but always new people too -- we eat way too much, the food and the company are always wonderful, and we enjoy every minute of it! (I always make the desserts.) It might sound very boring, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The year we nearly had one of those "Christmas Story" events...our black lab managed to pull the turkey perilously close to the edge of the table when our backs were turned. We all screamed "NOOOO" in unison and didn't see the dog for the rest of the day.

My favorite memory is about 20 years ago. My husbands uncle had finally gotten out of Cuba after trying for about 15 years. He spoke no English, but seemed to understand the "Americano" holiday. Giving thanks for finally being free. One thing that we still laugh about is when he was passed the corn casserole he got very animated and said "No! No corn!" He had eated so much corn in Cuba that to this day he will not eat it.