What’s Your Most Memorable Holiday Mishap?

It was Thanksgiving, and I was having only a few people over for dinner. I decided to get the smallest turkey I could find. I got a turkey at the grocery store that seemed like just the size I had in mind, about eight pounds. At our dinner, as we were eating, someone said, “This turkey tastes like chicken.” I said it was turkey but then realized that the package didn’t say anywhere that it was turkey. It didn’t really say what it was. It said it was a roaster. Well, this was the time I learned that a “roaster” meant chicken, not turkey.
Sally Morrison
Rocky Point, New York
 
Our biggest holiday mishap happened when I was about 14 years old. It was Thanksgiving dinner. My mother is known for her great chicken and dressing. We ran out of room in the fridge, but since we lived in Illinois and it was so cold, we decided to use the garage steps to house the pan with the chicken and dressing. My mother missed the step and tripped. The entire pan dumped right onto the garage floor, and then she stepped in it! We had no time to prepare another pan, so we got down and scooped it back up and put it back in the pan. We didn’t tell a soul. All during dinner, she got rave reviews on how great her dressing was.
Tameca Harris
Dallas, Texas
 
My family, like most, can be quite intense when you get us all together. My cousins all had multiple children a few years ago, and the chaos became less quaint. I appreciate children, but six screaming toddlers and 12 loud adults were too much to take. I walked in the door on Christmas Day and immediately had a panic attack. I spent most of the next two hours hiding in the bathroom until I could leave. Now I see my family members only in pairs.
Catie Kosinski
Bloomington, Indiana
 
One Thanksgiving morning, I had been up for a couple of hours and was enjoying my coffee and preparing dishes for our huge family feast. My granddaughter woke up, went to her comfortable chair to read, and minutes later said, “Um, Grandma. Do you know there’s an opossum under this table?” Of course, I laughed at her humor, until something told me to check it out―and sure enough, there he sat under the end table. I won’t take the time to tell you how he got there, but suffice it to say that animal control was there in minutes and the only animal we shared our dinner with was the turkey.
Lavonne Burkhart
Aurora, Illinois
 
Telling my husband’s mother that her stuffing was terrible because I thought someone else had made it.
Lael Storlie
Deer River, Minnesota
 
Thanksgiving in Dallas, a family of 20 waiting in the dining room, me in the kitchen with my sister-in-law, who startled me as I was turning around with a 15-pound ham on a plate. The ham did a half gainer off the plate, scoring a 9.5, but belly flopped onto the floor. We congratulated the ham by eating it anyway.
Dea Mathews
Birmingham, Alabama
 
I was cooking my first turkey dinner and had a houseful of people. In that mad frenzy 20 minutes before you put it all on the table, I was making gravy. I meant to grab the bottle of Gravy Master from the cupboard but mistakenly grabbed a bottle of vanilla and didn’t realize it until it was too late. Definitely a new take on turkey gravy that I would not recommend. My brother-in-law has never let me forget that day, and now when I set my Thanksgiving table, I put the bottle of vanilla at his place, just in case he wants to add a little.
Debra Smietana
Cheektowaga, New York
 
I had too much to drink at my company’s holiday party and almost walked off with the dinner-table centerpiece. I had been to seven weddings that year and was used to the brides offering up the floral arrangements at the end of the night. Only this time, the banquet manager stopped me and said, “You can’t take that! Put it back!”
Sonal Bellino
Oakland, California