Things don't always go according to plan on Thanksgiving Day. We hope you have a giggle with our bloopers submitted by some of our Macaroni KID publishers and readers. Sit back, relax, and just remember if it does go bad, it will probably end up being a memory your family giggles over for years!
Exploding ham
My dear beloved grandmother put a ham in the oven to serve with our turkey. But it wasn't just any ham. It was a canned ham and she thought she could leave it in the can to warm it up, unopened. Later, we hear a HUGE explosion coming from the kitchen. The can of ham had exploded and flew out of the oven. Thank gosh there was no one in the kitchen or rooms nearby because there were pieces of metal ham "can shrapnel" everywhere. Some of it even embedded in the walls across the room into the dining room!
--Charlotte
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Turkeys don't fly
You know those darling plastic platters that they sell at Walmart this time of year? They are not meant to hold an 18-pound turkey! We found out the hard way when passing dishes at the Thanksgiving table! Platter and turkey went crashing to the floor!
--Julie
A new name for the holiday
The first time I hosted Thanksgiving, my daughter came down with a really bad stomach bug when people were already en route to our house from out of town. By the time Thanksgiving dinner was ready, three more adults and two more children were hit with the same flu bug. The turkey was barely touched and that day has been dubbed "Pukesgiving." I haven't hosted since.
--Melissa
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The reason for the season
My first husband was British and soon after we were married he started to boast about how Great Britain was so much better than America... I mean all of the time! He was so obnoxious that by the time Thanksgiving came along, I couldn't stand it any longer. He asked what it was about because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in the United Kingdom. So I told him Thanksgiving is a holiday where the husband thanks the wife for cooking all year long by preparing her a feast and buying her many gifts.
--Leslie
Smoked turkey
While smoking the turkey on the back porch, enough heat generated to burn a hole in the deck. That caused the smoker to tilt against the back door. It caught the house on fire! Luckily, we were able to contain the fire with garden hoses (especially since the fire department got lost on the way). In the end, we still ate the turkey -- although it was a little dry.
--Eric
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Upside down oops
The first year I was married I made Thanksgiving dinner for my husband and me. It was my first turkey. When we sat down to dinner and cut into the turkey, we were horrified to see the breast meat was dark! We couldn't figure out what was wrong with it until we realized I'd cooked it upside down! Whoops!
--Sara-Lynne
Turkey Face
No one can beat this. My face was demolished at the grocery store by a frozen turkey. Yup! When I was 17 and worked as a grocery store clerk a little old lady asked me at the front of the store to price check her Thanksgiving turkey. It was about 20 pounds and frozen solid. I walked it into the meat department, put it on their counter, and waited patiently for the butcher to check the price. After weighing it, the butcher thought it would be funny to "pretend" to launch the turkey at me over the counter in a catching motion. Well, it was slick, so he lost control and it came flying out of his hands and hit me smack square in the face. I was knocked out. When I came to -- right in front of customers -- I had a broken nose, broken cheekbone, and required stitches from eye to eye over the bride of my nose. The turkey scars will forever haunt me, and every year when I go home and visit the grocery store I am referred to as "turkey face" by the veteran employees.
--Julie
Stuffed ... with heart!
First time making turkey left all the giblets in... still was good!
--Dianna
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Learning your birds
In my mid-20s, I hosted my family for the first time ever for a holiday. I had no clue what I was doing. The day before, I got the "turkey" out of the freezer to thaw and thought, crap, this is NOT big enough to serve my whole family. I looked down, and to my horror, I realized I'd actually bought a chicken. I immediately called my sister (who had given birth to her first child 10 days before) in a panic. She laughed until she cried, but I was still in a panic about how to serve chicken with a JAR of turkey gravy. I didn't expect my sister to show up for that holiday dinner with her new baby, but when a knock at the door came as we were sitting down to the table, I found her newborn baby in his car seat on the other side, bundled up with a note on it that said "here for the chicken." To this day, we still laugh hysterically at that blunder. You'll be glad to know I've actually become a good cook and host my in-laws for Thanksgiving and Christmas annually (and we eat TURKEY!).
--Katy
