Do You Have A Favorite Family Thanksgiving Story?

[sablebrush52]

The one that sticks in my mind happened many years ago.

My parent hosted a family Thanksgiving Dinner, which also served as a family reunion, every year, and members of my family would fly in from all over the country for the event.

Mom's favorite turkey to serve was either Butterball, or Empire, and she was very particular about her birds. Her parents were immigrants who were bakers by trade, and also butchers, and opened a bakery in Connecticut, where she worked after school. My maternal grandmother was one of the best cooks I've ever met. Everything she made was made from scratch and unbelievably delicious, and my mother had that same talent.

On the Thanksgiving in question she had purchased a large Butterball from the local supermarket. The morning of the feast she set to work, only to discover that the bird was nothing but fat. Mom bundled up the bird and drove back to the supermarket only to find the doors closed. So she started hammering on the doors until the manger showed up.

"We're closed" said the manager and turned around and walked away.

BAM! BAM! BAM! Mom continued to hammer on the door.

The manager returned, "Listen lady, I said we're closed!" and walked away again.

BAM! BAM! BAM! Mom continued to hammer on their front door.

The manger, tired of the incessant banging, one again came to the door and said, "Lady, if you don't stop banging on this door I'm going to call the police!"

"Good!", replied Mom, "Bring them on and we'll get some reporters to hear how you treat a little old lady, a senior citizen, on whom you're pushing a lousy bird that should never have been sold." And she started hammering on that poor door while the manager just stood there.

He figured out that he was in the losing position on this one, opened the door, and escorted her back to the meat department. The staff were told to help her. Mom took her time. She carefully checked out every bird and then picked the one that most satisfied her. The manager escorted her out and as she left, she turned back and said, "Have a happy Thanksgiving!"

 

[Servant King]

Awesome story. Before cancel culture, mind-numbing social media, and a host of other admirable societal concoctions. And pronouns were something you learned about in English class, not....what they apparently are now. A bygone era, for sure.

Thanks for sharing, Jesse! The way you tell the story, I really do feel like I was there.

 

[Briar Lee]

So long as my father was alive, I took Thanksgiving for granted.

My father’s parents were both deceased, but my mother’s parents were alive, and Mama would cook up the traditional turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie and such, and we’d load in the car and drive to Hermatige to have Thanksgiving dinner there at Grandma Agee’s.

Then on the Friday before Labor Day 1971 my father unknowingly swallowed a chicken bone eating dinner at Humansville, was misdiagnosed, and a week later Daddy died of an infection the bone had caused. He was 52, Mama was 45, and I was 13.

Our world turned upside down.

Come November, the prospect of that Thanksgiving without Daddy hung in the air, unspoken and dreaded.

I rode a school bus to and from school, and my driver was a 63 year old retired LAPD officer named Hadley Worthan.

His wife of over 50 years had died of cancer in May of 1971. My mother asked Hadley, if he’d like to have Thanksgiving with us that year. His eyes lit up and he thanked her, and said he’d been dreading Thanksgiving and would be honored to have it with us.

That year Uncle Jiggs came and took my mother’s parents to Kansas City, so it was just us three in that farmhouse on Thanksgiving Day.

When Mama bent over to take the turkey from the oven, Hadley made a perfect wolf whistle, and Mama blushed and looked back and smiled.

My father was an elegant, handsome man, but no mature man I’ve ever seen or can imagine was as classically handsome as Hadley Worthan was in 1971. He was a dead ringer for Loren Greene on Bonanza except Hadley had a narrow waist and broad shoulders and was taller, and the manners a lifetime of being an officer and later spokesman for the LAPD cultivated.

I knew there was a budding romance, and while it was shocking, my mother was as beautiful as Hadley was handsome and I welcomed having the prospect of a father figure in my life.

By Christmas they were engaged.

It is a sexist but true statement that all extraordinarily beautiful women are shall we say, high spirited, and my mother was no exception. They married in June 1972 and Mama and I wound back up on the farm New Year’s Day 1973.

It was none of Hadley’s fault whatsoever, that he wasn’t my father who’d learned to put up with and endure my mother’s temperament.

Two months after they separated and the divorce was final, I stopped by Hadley’s home in Humansville to pick up a book, and and a woman who was the widowed mother of one of my classmates opened the door.

Hadley invited me in, and I watched his new girlfriend smoke cigarettes and drink coffee with Hadley and laugh at everything he said. I knew Hadley wasn’t going to be lonesome, and as I left she said to me

Give Lois my love!

I knew better, and I didn’t want Mama to know I’d stopped by Hadley’s.

I was walking to the Shady Nook where Mama had her next boyfriend, a man named Carl Clymore she’d dumped to marry my father in 1946, who owned three thousand acres near Flemington, was a former champion cowboy, and could do rope tricks like Will Rogers.

I think Carl made it until Thanksgiving 1973, but I’ll always be the most grateful to Hadley Worthan for brightening up the first Thanksgiving after my father died.

 

[alaskanpiper]

Not anything particularly spectacular but one year when I was young our German Shepherd managed to relocate the entire turkey from the counter to the floor without anyone noticing until he was about a whole breast in.

 

[Hillcrest]

Funny to me :

Many, Many years ago when we were much younger, my two older brothers were very much into hunting. I was not. As the youngest son its very hard to ever top your brothers at anything.

One particular year I went outside to smoke a cigarette with my coffee and spotted a pile of leaves moving in the woods. It turned out to be a 10 point buck that had broken its front legs jumping the rock wall. I called the local police and they came out and shot and tagged the buck for me.

I called one of my brothers who came over and we gutted it behind the garage and he drove it to a butcher to be made into steaks, burgers, sausage etc. It dressed out at 120 pounds of venison.

A couple months later while having another coffee and cigarette, a woman drove into my driveway in a panic … she had just hit a deer near my property. I calmed her down and told her I would take care of it. I called the police and explained the situation and they came out and shot the doe and tagged it for me. 5 pick-up trucks stopped as they drove by and asked me if I was taking the deer. I said yes. Again, I called my brother and we gutted the deer and he drove it to the butcher. The doe dressed out at 160 pounds of venison! The butcher said it was a perfect hit … only half a pound of meat was ruined.

That Thanksgiving as the conversation started to lull after dinner, one of my brothers asked the other if he had been hunting … he said he went out three times in rain and snow and got nothing. The other brother said he had been out four times in rain and snow for hours and he had gotten nothing as well.

I said “Well, I went out on the porch with a coffee and a cigarette and I got a 10 point buck and a big Doe…. I love this hunting stuff !! I have to do this more often !” …

Our mother seeing I was teasing them chimed in with “He’s very good at it!”

Neither brother would talk to me for two hours after that !!!

(I don’t know why they were upset … They got most of the venison as they had freezers and I didn’t).

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone !!!

 

[sablebrush52]

Not anything particularly spectacular but one year when I was young our German Shepherd managed to relocate the entire turkey from the counter to the floor without anyone noticing until he was about a whole breast in.

Smart dog!

 

[kcghost]

Damn, Germans always messing things up!!

 

[mso489]

My paternal grandma had weathered the depression and never had any household help except on Thanksgiving, to help in the kitchen. She sat at the table when the turkey she had carefully roasted was carried out by her helper, when the bird slid off the platter.

There was silence among the assembled family members from far and wide.

Grandma calmly waved her hand, and said, "Take it back in the kitchen and bring out the other turkey." There was a relieved sigh around the table, accepting the fantasy, and the helper put the bird back on the platter and retreated to the kitchen and soon re-appeared with "the other turkey."

 

[Zero]

My paternal grandma had weathered the depression and never had any household help except on Thanksgiving, to help in the kitchen. She sat at the table when the turkey she had carefully roasted was carried out by her helper, when the bird slid off the platter.

There was silence among the assembled family members from far and wide.

Grandma calmly waved her hand, and said, "Take it back in the kitchen and bring out the other turkey." There was a relieved sigh around the table, accepting the fantasy, and the helper put the bird back on the platter and retreated to the kitchen and soon re-appeared with "the other turkey."

God made dirt and dirt won't hurt

 

[tbradsim1]

What wonderful stories.

 

[unadoptedlamp]

Our family celebrated Canadian thanksgiving, but turkey was on the menu all the same.

Growing up, my babysitter family friend ran a turkey farm. Since I was 6, I had to help out there. That's where I learned about washing grease off my hands with gasoline and other fun things like that.

The reward for my labour was that I got to pick the turkey for thanksgiving.

Being six, I wasn't much taller than some of those turkeys, and they could be pretty mean. The big ones had no mercy and would put me in my place with a few sharp pecks or by chasing me around the barn. They are mini-dinosaurs, after-all, and it's a hell of thing to be eye level with a big "tom" turkey that has you pegged as someone to peck and claw at.

I was a vindictive little prick, so I always had my eye on the biggest bird that gave me the most trouble. Not because I thought it would impress my parents... it was just cold blooded retribution.

The turkey I picked couldn't fit in the pan, let alone the oven. It had to be cut up before even cooking, so kind of spoiled the main event, while everyone had a laugh at me.

Lesson learned; compassion entered into my life and I stopped picking out the birds from a place of malice.

 

[unadoptedlamp]

Ok, well this guy probably has the best story, fresh from this year: Cruise passenger who fell overboard rescued in ‘Thanksgiving miracle’ - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/25/cruise-passenger-overboard-gulf-of-mexico-rescued

 

[alaskanpiper]

Smart dog!

Smart breed for sure. Though he was one of the dumber ones we owned. Huge though. 120 lbs. Was constantly dominated by his 60 lb “sister”. She was the boss.