I love the post-dinner game we play every year. Everyone gets an index card. You write three things you're thankful for and three things you want Christmas. The cards get put in a hat, they get read aloud one by one, and everybody guesses who wrote each card. Fun for crowds.

Ever year the extended family gathered at my grandmother's house, and we always ran a pool based on the total points of both pro football games. My mother, who rarely watched pro football, was two touchdowns short of winning the pool. The second game was almost over and my father was holding the current winning number.

Then one team scored a touchdown and my mother got all excited. "One more touchdown and I win, right?" "Yep, one more touchdown and you win."

Then they showed the replay and my mom climbed the wall. "There here he goes again! There he goes again! I win. I win." We all laughed and said, "No, that's just the replay."

Her face crumpled and from then on for years to come, after every replay we would yell "There he goes again!" and embarrass my mom.

That day though the other team did score, so my mom did win the pool.

Aw, that is so sweet. I think I'd have a shit fit if the oven door came off. :-) I also have left the giblets in a turkey.

We also do the thankful game, but say we say it aloud. About five or so years ago one of the little cousins got a cranberry stuck in his ear and had to go to the ER.

At my in-laws we always paint Christmas ornaments after dinner. (The women and kids do that is. The men are usually passed at on the couch watching football.)

Every few years I get up the gumption to go to NYC for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I've gone twice with my mom, and both times have been awesome - up before dawn, on the street early, mayhem ensues for a few hours, then a quick turkey club at a coffee shop and on the train back home to cook the real dinner. It's always fun to be right at the scene of the action.

However, being at the Parade and watching it are very different experiences. You don't get to see any of those dancing shows - those are only at Herald Square, and they're only to give the TV cameras something show while the parade makes its way toward downtown. And you don't have any programs or captions to let you know what flash-in-the-pan Disney or soap opera celebrity is waving from the floats. You just have to assume they're famous. The Sesame Street float is always fantastic, becuase they have the real actors that I grew up with, and I turn instantly five years old, jumping up and down going "Maria! Luis! OVER HERE!"

Anyway, it takes a lot of energy, but it's always well worth it. Some of my best Thanksgiving memories.

I spent a Thanksgiving in Dublin at the IYHA hostel. We made turkey dinner of a chicken, stuffing, squash, gravy, and went to a pub after. No cranberries to be found, at least not 25+ years ago. A truly awful meal, but great fun.

One year my ex had the boys the night before Thanksgiving; I was to pick them up from his mom's house around four so we could have Thanksgiving with my family. So I took the opportunity to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with a couple of other people that I didn't really know well. (We belonged to the same singles group). It was pouring down rain; the floats all had to be held low due to wind and some of them were pulled from the parade altogether. I had a fairly decent view, until a guy who was 6 foot 4 came and stood in front of me. But all in all, we laughed the entire time, drenched as we were, and an amused NYC officer took our picture for us. This was about 10 years ago, and I have to admit that I like to watch the parade on the television better than being there.

I think I was at that same parade with my mom, rv. It was freezing and wet and miserable, and I know there haven't been too many really rainy parades and the timing's about right. But the cops were super nice to everybody that day. And the view was very very good because there were almost no crowds. But it was a bummer that there were so few balloons and they were held so low.

Try it again sometime; it's nowhere near as much of a challenge/ordeal when it's not raining. Now I have a patented system for getting a good view where it's not too crazy mobbed.

There are so many. The time my grandmother declared that she knows we all masturbate and that she just wants us to know that it is normal and healthy. Then there was the time that she told us that statistically one of her grandchildren would likely be gay and that she just wanted us to know that she would love us no matter what. Or the time she discussed selecting prosthetic testicles for my grandfather.

MomMom drinks.

Oh, jrossi4r, that's awesome.

Once, my poor Mum, in probably a magazine induced effort at normalcy, made us go around the table and tell what the person on our left had to be thankful for. Halfway around was pretty bland, then we got to my brother P, who said to my Dad, "You should be thankful Mom didn't leave your ass years ago." (this was a sober event)

Good times.

Supplanted only by my drunken (same) brother and sister calling me after an X-mas dinner that I brought a poor stranded student to as a guest and asking me if I was gay. And if I was, it was allright. "I know it's allright. I'm a theatre major. I'm not gay. She just didn't have anywhere to go. And my other friend, D, that you met P, over Spring Break, she's just a friend too. (although I lusted for her in my heart, I didn't say) Please let me hang up now. Merry Christmas."