30 Times Thanksgiving Took A Terrible Or Hilarious Turn

Last Thanksgiving was absolutely the worst. My extended family live in another state, so it was just me and my parents. My mom was pissed at my stepdad for various reasons, so she stayed in her room all day. My stepdad and I awkwardly ate in silence while watching the Godfather. Then after dinner he had a heart attack. He died in the hospital a few days later. My mom was crushed that he was gone, and crushed at how she treated him in their last few days together. That was last year. I'm not excited to see what this year brings.

Ah, the worst one was probably where the entire family (an odd 20 or so) got sick so we all had to take turns going into the bathroom to throw up for the rest of the night. Nobody ate the Turkey after that.

I was only a toddler at the time but thanksgiving is known as the anniversary of the day my mother, father, and uncle outed one another as [illegal substance] addicts! life fell apart fairly rapidly the following year and it has been fun ever since. thanksgiving is now just a small family affair of myself, my brother, and my guardian grandparents

edit: thanks for the concern! my brother and i are doing well, i’m 23 now and this was about 20 years ago. so far as i know, it was EXACTLY like a mexican standoff lmao

for my parents and uncle, they have been in and out of jail, rehab, and everything in between. my mom certainly struggles more than my dad does bc she’s bipolar and has always been more than a little selfish and narcissistic, d***s just made it a hell of a lot worse. but my grandparents are my parents now and they’re wonderful, strong, and inspiring people, so i’m not particularly bothered! happy thanksgiving, always moving onward.

My grandpa and grandma got divorced, and grandpa remarried.

One Thanksgiving, my not-so-well grandpa stood and declared he regretted letting my grandma divorce him, and that it was the biggest mistake of his life. Right in front of his current wife.

edit: holy s**t sorry I didn't realize people would give a f**k. What happened next? What did this outburst of drama culminate to? Nothing. He sat back down, old wife chuckled nervously, we continued with speeches (yes this was during the "what are you thankful for" round about) and all tried to act like it didn't happen. Everyone was thanking the current wife for taking care of him and everything she does, lots of love, but she was visibly upset/disappointed. Now (many years later) he's in a nursing home and she's not.

I'm leaving for basic training the day before Thanksgiving this year. So, my family celebrated on Sunday. My mom and step-dad were supposed to stop by (they live an hour South, and have a cabin an hour north) on their way home. Well, 6pm rolls around and they still haven't shown.

Turns out, my SD decided that he didn't want to go to my uncles and instead wanted to meet us at my grandparents. Which he never told us. So he just drove right on home, denying my mother her last chance to see me before I'm gone until February. I'm honestly still pretty angry.

My grandma accidentally poured dish soap on the turkey instead of oil... might have been one of the funniest but most upsetting things I’ve ever seen.

Walked into the garage with my dog and a casserole. My dads champion show dog came galloping out to meet me let out a death scream, had a heart attack and died. Tried cpr for ten minutes. It was clearly dead. He went inside saying what did (me)he do! Grabbed a bottle and left. I picked up the dog and went around to vet clinics for one that was open, the one that was just said yes he’s dead.
I’ve never recovered. It was also my birthday.

My oldest sister called another sister "a fat b***h" over some stupid fight they’ve been having for years, who then in turn picked up the bowl of green bean casserole and threw it at her. She missed (it wasn’t that far, but I guess she was really angry and that messed up her aim), and it ended up hitting my mother's favorite painting. It wasn’t salvageable.

We all stopped having Thanksgiving with the entire family after that.

My family had a Thai exchange student during Thanksgiving one year. Thanksgiving is *huge* in our family--35+ people at dinner, tons of food, appetizers out the wazoo, etc--and this was going to be her first and only Thanksgiving, so we really played up how exciting it was. We told her that there was going to be a ton of food, so don't eat a big breakfast! Save room for the amazing Thanksgiving food!

She ended up not eating anything at all on Wednesday or Thursday morning and fainted in my uncle's living room on Thanksgiving day. She hadn't even eaten any appetizers--turned out that she didn't know what that word meant, and didn't know she was allowed to eat the food that was spread out all over the coffee table and bar.

We almost had to take her to the emergency room because her English wasn't quite good enough to explain why she fainted and we thought something was seriously wrong. After all that, she ended up not even liking the food.

My brother (10) decides to demonstrate how to properly body slam himself onto a bed to the cousins. Proceeds to hit his head on the windowsill behind the bed and crack his head open. We could see skull. Cousin passes out and the parents only console the kid who passes out. 15 stitches later, we got to eat dinner.