Fresh Out Of Jail
“My step-brother was just released from jail for narcotics possession and distribution. Total black sheep of the family. Brings his girlfriend who is high out of her mind. They proceed to eat nothing but turkey and rolls. Then she decided to go shoot up in my step-aunt’s bathroom to where we found her passed out. My step-brother attempted to wake her up by punching her, in his words ‘The cooter.’ The cops were called.”
Wait For Us!
“Last year, my husband’s grandma hosted Thanksgiving dinner at her house and asked us to provide the turkey.
We had to go to spend Thanksgiving with my husband’s dad’s side that morning, so we dropped the turkey off on our way to his dad’s house. His grandma said that they would be eating at 4.
We arrived back at his grandmas house around 3:45 and everyone had already eaten all the food. Including the entire turkey.”
Her Ploy Did Nothing But Make Family Dinners Awkward For Him
“I invited my girlfriend over for Thanksgiving when I was in high school. We had gotten intimate for our first time the night before and during dinner, she abruptly shouted out, ‘I’m pregnant, I took a test this morning and it’s positive. I told you pulling out wouldn’t work.’
There was a lot of yelling, I don’t remember what all was said, but my older brother knew the night before was our first time, and he yelled at her that if she’s testing positive, it can’t be mine. She argued for a minute but once my older relatives realized what had happened, they all started calling her a liar, and she eventually left. She even switched schools after that.
Apparently, she was pregnant with someone else’s kid. No matter though, I’ve felt like the black sheep at every family get together since and I have heard the story retold every year for the past 16 years.”
Pun Fight
“My uncle and grandfather don’t have a good relationship, but were tolerating each other because Thanksgiving. My uncle was cooking lasagna and my grandfather decided to help, so he grated the cheese. He did this in another room, because the kitchen was full of other people cooking. I had brought in the cheese and everything was going fine. Flash forward to dinner time, the food is coming out and as tradition dictates we always start with lasagna. My grandfather made some joke like, ‘I know you hate me, but at least I’m grate,’ and that’s when things went south.
My uncle literally went into a rage, and was yelling at everyone because we didn’t tell him he was using ‘tainted’ cheese. Then proceeded to flip the table ALL the food was on. Then my grandfather called him outside to settle the score, which resulted in two grown men fighting in the backyard, culminating with my grandad getting thrown into a pond, and slicing his leg on a jagged rock. The rest of us ordered Chinese food, and kicked my uncle out, and my grandfather refused the hospital because he had a little too much ‘holiday joy’ in him at the time. Surprising my uncle hasn’t come to holidays in years now.”
Getting To The Heart Of The Problem
“My grandmother faked a heart attack. She didn’t like my dad very much, and she picked a fight with him so he decided that he was going home.
When my grandmother realized that my stepmom (her daughter) was going to take dad’s side and go home too, she yelled a lot and then, as a last ditch effort, dramatically clutched her chest and collapsed very carefully (it was outside and I guess she didn’t want to bump her head or mess up her clothes).
My dad offered to call 911, but grandfather said it wasn’t necessary, and when my grandmother realized no one was taking her seriously, she opened her eyes, allowed my grandfather to help her up, and went inside with him while fake sobbing.
Normally, she was quite nice, but she had her moments and really wasn’t happy that her daughter had grown up and had a life. Holidays usually brought out the worst in her, which was weird because she loved cooking and celebrating.”
Why Have A Little When She Can Have Half The Bottle
“One of my mom’s friends was invited to our Thanksgiving because her kids were with their significant others’ families for the holiday. That year, my uncle brought a bottle of homemade limoncello to share. The stuff was delicious, but it was also 100 proof. Everyone was drinking it out of little 1oz glass cups. My mom’s friend instead poured herself a FULL glass (1/2 the bottle) when no one was looking, downed it in 15 minutes, and then tried to go back for more. She was passed out wasted at least an hour before dinner even began.”
Lay Off The Drink Auntie
“My aunt got hammered and then took off all her clothes. She ran down the street without a thing on her after hitting on my cousin’s boyfriend. Her kids saw it all. They were all under the age of 12. She then cried the whole next day because everyone was mad at her. I called CPS because she tried driving under the influence with the kids.
A few weeks later she got trashed at the same house by the pool. She lost balance when she stepped into the pool filter. She first hit the pool but caught herself with the hand that was holding the glass Budweiser bottle. The shards of glass bottle ended up inside her cheek and neck. After hitting the ground and passing out, she rolled into the pool and would’ve died if others hadn’t fished her out. She is still addicted to drinking.
She’s not invited to Thanksgivings anymore because she now does speed.
I’m at my moms family’s house and this story was about my dad’s sister. My mom’s family is way more of hicks, but just less addiction problems.
After years of no contact, she showed up to my parents house two days ago. She had been homeless for 12 days living in her car. She kicked the ex con out of the car for the night to park her car in my parents driveway. After a few hours, she went back to the boyfriend likely because she needed to get high. Also, she got fired from another nursing job. Another nursing job let her go without reporting her.”
“Hey, She Looks Familiar”
“About a decade ago, my cousin, who was a Junior in high school finally got himself a girlfriend. She didn’t come to Thanksgiving but everyone wanted to see what she looked liked. So he gave us a picture and everyone had a turn looking at it, made a comment, and pass it along.
Most of the men in the family were hammered, and when they got the pic, all of them would say, ‘Hey, she looks familiar…’ then proceed to talk about the time they banged her. Of course, it was all meant to be in good fun, but it was pretty classless and this was my cousin’s first girlfriend, and he’s not really the ‘Frat boy/alpha male’ type to appreciate this type of ribbing. He was also the smartest in the family by far.
Eventually, he left the state for college, became a doctor, and never showed up to Thanksgiving dinner ever again. He did show up to a family wedding. All those guys came up to him asking for free medical advice.”
Mother-In-Law From My Nightmares
“Every Thanksgiving with my mother-in-law is something else. My wife and I host about 15 people, and everyone brings side dishes as is the custom. Not her mother. She only brings stuff for herself. She proudly announces that whatever she brought is just for her. It’s not for diet purposes, because she eats all the other food too.
When dessert makes an appearance, she will make a big scene about wanting the first piece instead of letting the kids get theirs and get out of the way. One year there was a big argument about the corner pieces of a chocolate cake. She went first as usual, and cut herself two corner pieces and took them both. If you want to make little kids cry, do that. She wouldn’t give them up though.
Also, she treats our guest room and bath like a hotel. When she leaves she takes the toilet paper rolls, the Kleenex box, paper towels, soap, etc.
She’s not fat, and she’s not senile. She is invited every year because my wife is the only family that she has and my wife would feel tremendously guilty if she didn’t invite her. Not much of an excuse, but that’s why. And if you are horrified by the above, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could really make your head spin with her behavior on the 364 days of the year that aren’t Thanksgiving.
There’s a lot more of these sordid tales. A local bank used to have a freezer inside during a summer promotion with free ice cream bars for customers. She got banned from the bank because she would go there every day and take two ice cream bars and bring them home. She wasn’t even a customer at the bank. Finally, they told her not to come back.
In the 20 or so years I’ve been with my wife, her mother has never offered to cook a meal, pay for a meal, watch our kids, or help with the kids in any way. The last time she was invited here she brought half a tray of pastries. My wife questioned her about it, and she took the leftover tray of pastries from a party she was at after they had been picked over and god knows what. We told her to throw them out, but she just put them back in her car. Also, if she’s at a restaurant and someone has a birthday party, she will go over to their table and ask them if he can have a piece of their cake. I’m not joking. She has a real thing about cake.
She stole my mother’s prescription eyeglasses last Christmas when they were both here, claiming that she thought they were hers (hers were black reading glasses, my mother’s were red prescription glasses). After getting busted for that, she planted a black sweater in my mom’s guest room and made a big deal about my mom taking her things.
She once showed up unannounced to one of our vacations, and brought a friend, and expected us to take them both to dinner five minutes after we arrived. We don’t tell her when we are going on vacation anymore.”
She Wasn’t Right In The Head
“Every year we had Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house. One year everyone was there but one aunt. She was outside in her car refusing to come in. Turns out she had taken out a credit card in my cousin’s name while said cousin was in the navy. Cousin found out on the drive over while opening her mail. Aunt had racked up $10,000+ debt in my cousin’s name.
My cousin did not pay, her father made her mother pay her back using part of her retirement. Seems this was just one of the first signs my aunt was not in her right mind anymore. My cousin did not want to press charges but was able to get her credit back up with some work after the debt was played off by her mother. There were a couple of other things my aunt had done but nothing like this.
Unfortunately, she was literally out of her mind and only got worse. That Thanksgiving was one of the last ones where our family got together like that. My uncle, aunt and cousin’s never came back after that one. They did visit again at other times, but aunt was medicated and not like herself anymore.”
Sitcom Material
“I was at my wife’s uncle’s house for Thanksgiving, and his wife decided right after dinner to play their wedding video (because it was also their anniversary weekend). She looked for a half hour to find the video tape, found it and gathered the whole dinner party (25 people) to the back room, played the video, and right as she was walking down the aisle, the video went fuzzy and cut to Dale Earnhardt’s funeral.
Uncle Joe used that tape to record Dale Earnhardt’s funeral. Granted it was in small town Michigan that has a Nascar track, but still….Everyone froze in complete shock and I started laughing and felt like I was in a sitcom but it was real life.”
I Scream, You Scream, We’re All Screaming
“This was years ago when electric ice cream makers were relatively new (or at least the affordable ones were new), so for Thanksgiving, my wife’s family decided that rather than have people bake dessert, after dinner, we would all instead make homemade ice cream.
We used good ingredients and made some really high-quality ice cream. It was fun and the all the kids enjoyed it a lot.
But when we were done making the ice cream, my wife’s aunt put the ice cream aside and proceeded to pull out some awful store-brand ice cream to serve the kids. They explained that the homemade Ice cream was only for the adults, the kids just got store-bought ice cream because ‘they can’t appreciate the good stuff anyway.’
Maybe that was true. But regardless, the kids really wanted to eat the homemade stuff simply because they made it themselves. They were really put out, some tears were shed. I spoke up and said don’t be heartless, let the kids have the stuff they made, give them at least a little bit. I mean, in my family the kids are the focus on holidays, it’s about the enjoyment we get by seeing them so happy.
My wife’s aunts refused to listen, gave me grief about how ‘you don’t understand, you don’t have kids’ and I was like ‘Yeah, but I was a kid and I know how bad I would feel.’ They put their foot down and said no, there wasn’t enough to go around, the kids eat the terrible ice cream. ‘If you want them to have some so badly, then you can share your portion with them.’
I said alright then, okie dokie, that’s what I’ll do.
So when I went to serve myself, I got this absolutely massive salad bowl and filled the dang thing all the way to the top, grabbed six spoons and then went and sat at the kids’ table, and we all just pigged out on my ‘portion.’
There was hardly any left, so what did the adults have to do? Pull the terrible ice cream out of the fridge and eat that instead, sulking and at the same time trying to maintain their dignity.
It was pretty much angry silence for the next hour until we left.
I was worried my wife was going to be mad at me and tell me off once we got in the car, but instead she laughed like a freaking hyena and told me she loved me.”
He Should Never Be Near Us
“My family invited someone who everyone learned earlier that year abused and touched me throughout my childhood until I was 18. Then my mother pulled me aside to say forgiveness is the spirit of the holiday. I cried and was terrified to be in the same room but was met by other sibling with a rant about me being dramatic and narcissistic. I haven’t spent another holiday or talked to them since. They said I ruined the family while the kid diddler watches their kids.”
Hypocrites
“My aunt, who had been married multiple times and was generally known to have been a ho, nastily told my sister she was going to swim in the lake of fire for the rest of eternity for living with her fiancé before marriage. She berated her for a few minutes about sinning and what not (they were at my grandmothers cooking). We live in the middle of nowhere and our houses are divided by small pastures. Que my sister running home crying and my dad jumping three fences to go kick them out of my grandmothers house. It was quite the scene for the neighbors with the yelling and what not. We took all of our turkeys across the pasture to the other aunts house and they had pizza while they packed their bags to go home.
They never came back for a holiday dinner.
We lived/live on two roads that cross with a lot of fenced off pastures. At the time of this story my fathers sister lived across the street/pastures from my mothers mom which was also adjacent to our house (think, triangle). There were about three fences between my grandmothers house and ours, my mother sister was at my grandmothers house. My father was running across the pastures, jumping the fences and yelling. My sister was going the opposite direction, screaming and crying. There was more screaming when he made it to the other house. We still enjoy telling this story now that we’re older and I can add in that I lit the same pastures on fire two Thanksgivings ago.”
They Aint Coming Back
“My aunt always brought several large Tupperware containers and would begin packing up food for herself immediately after everyone had filled their plate. If you thought you might want seconds you had to take them the first time because there was often nothing left after she’d filled her containers. Of course if you did that she’d make a snide comment about how much food you were eating. I don’t recall ever seeing her sit down with a plate to eat with us, she was always in the kitchen packing up the food that she hadn’t paid for or prepared.
Her daughter (28 at the time) wouldn’t speak to anyone and fed the shrimp hors d’oeuvres to the cats.
They’re no longer invited.”
Why On Earth Would You Say That?
“My dad died in August of 2011. That Thanksgiving we (my mom, my boyfriend and I) went to visit my dad’s brother. I was 17. All three of us worked in special ed with severely handicapped students and it was something I was and am still very passionate about.
The visit started with my aunt and uncle calling my much loved students the ‘R’ word and that they were burden on society, their classes were a waste of school funding that took resources away from the ‘normal’ kids who deserved that money because they would actually grow up and be ‘useful.’ So yeah, great start right out the gate.
Then my aunt’s father (not related to us at all) showed up and started grilling my recently widowed mother on when she was going to start dating and if she was going to remarry. Why or why not? Why didn’t she know?
It was by far the most uncomfortable and infuriating holiday I’ve ever experienced.”
That Poor Raccoon
“My family celebrated Thanksgiving a few days early one year because my uncle, who we were close to, was moving out of the country and his flight was on Thanksgiving. So, it’s the day of, and we’re cooking like crazy in our tiny kitchen. We had a strange neighbor (who later caught their house on fire while trying to cook up some crystal) who often came by and pestered my mom. The morning of our Thanksgiving, she came by and asked for $20 and in return, she would spray paint our house number on the curb… for some reason.
Anyway, my mom let her just to get her out of our hair, so she spray painted the number and left. An hour later, we saw her stalking around our front yard with a black garbage bag. Our family was mildly freaking out, so my mother went out and asked her what’s wrong. Well, she pointed to a raccoon sitting in our other neighbor’s driveway. It was alive, but pretty obviously sick because it was just sitting there with flies buzzing around its head. The woman asked my mother if we had a kitchen knife she could borrow, she said she ‘needs to put the poor thing out of its misery.’ Her plan was to push the raccoon into the plastic bag with a stick, and then… stab it to death with OUR kitchen knife.
My mom politely declined and the woman started freaking out and crying and left. The raccoon sat in the driveway for hours and now it was ruining our Thanksgiving because it was directly across from our house and, frankly, incredibly depressing. My uncle, an admittedly bizarre person, decided he would fix this. He went down to the crazy lady, got the black trash bag from her and they both pushed the raccoon into the bag. She said, ‘Do you have the knife?’ Which, of course not, my uncle wasn’t savage. No, he grabbed the thickest stick he could find and beat this senseless raccoon to death. All the while my 8-year-old self was sobbing and thoroughly traumatized. I didn’t watch, but I could hear what was going on. That was an awful Thanksgiving.”
The Attack Of The Sisters
“I have three sisters, all much older, 9, 13 and 15 years older, so they were always far ahead of me in life. They all had families and children etc. well before me. I cannot have children, which they did not know.
We were at the Thanksgiving table and things were tense because they were nasty and I was just waiting for an insult. They started in on me about having children and I said my husband and I were in the process of adopting. My oldest sister said, ‘That is not really having children.’
I punched her. I don’t regret it.”