Thanksgiving… a day filled with memories of family and friends, of hearth and home. We want to share this Thanksgiving with you. We’re looking for your favorite Thanksgiving story. Upload your story in the comments section or email them to donna@recollections.biz. Please try to keep your story to no more than 500 words. We’ll pick our three favorites. Then, we’re giving each winner a $40 gift certificate as a way of saying thanks for sharing your memories with us! Contest ends on Monday night, November 28 at midnight.
Here’s a favorite Thanksgiving story from my family vault.
High school football was a Thanksgiving tradition in my hometown (and continues to this day). Usually, Mom was the one who stayed home while Dad, my sister, and I headed out to the game. One year, my aunt decided to give Mom a break and offered to come over and tend to the turkey and all the trimmings so she could attend the game with us.
When we got home, my aunt had quite the story to tell! She decided to use a recipe for the turkey that included placing a paper bag (like those you get at the grocery store) like a tent over the bird. It wasn’t too long before smoke was coming from the oven. She opened the oven door to find that the paper bag was on fire. She was unsure what to do next and started to panic.
The kitchen filled with smoke and wafted through the open kitchen window. Fortunately, our neighbor was in his yard at the time this was happening. I’m not sure if it was the smoke or her cries of “oh no!” that brought him to our back door. It really didn’t matter as he was the superhero who saved the day.
He came in and removed the flaming turkey from the oven, tamped out the fire, calmed down my aunt, and helped her examine the remains. After getting rid of the ashes and giving the bird a little bath, it went back into the oven. He even helped air out the house!
When we arrived home after the game, we had no idea what happened until she told us. We all had a good laugh and shared a prayer of thanksgiving for a delicious turkey and having a home that was still intact! We also made sure to visit our neighbor to let him know how thankful we were that he was our fireman. He really saved the day!
Now, it’s your turn to share your favorite Thanksgiving story. We look forward to hearing about your memories!
– Donna Klein
One year my younger brother (a high school freshman) had gone to a museum in Washington DC just before Thanksgiving. While he was there, my older brother (a college student) dared him to steal a giant chili pepper off a display in the museum’s lobby. He told my younger brother that it was a federal crime to steal anything in DC, which only made the danger more appealing to the mischievous sibling. So, of course he stole it. He brought it home and told everyone the story of how he stole a large chili pepper.
At Thanksgiving we went around the table saying what we are thankful for and when it was my younger brother’s turn he said, “I am thankful for my big pepper.”
He no sooner finished the sentence and my (sweet, Catholic) grandmother chimes in with, “Oh, that’s what they are calling it now.”
Thanksgiving was always my grandfather’s favorite holiday. He loved to eat and he especially loved turkey. The last Thanksgiving that we shared with my grandfather gave us a good laugh. My grandparents had come to our house for dinner and sat down at the table. My mom brought in the turkey but on a special plate she put the cooked turkey neck, my grandfather’s favorite part to eat, and put it in front of my grandfather. He sat there starring at this turkey neck and looked at my mother and said, “What’s that?”
“It’s for you,” my mom said.
My grandfather was extremely hard of hearing to the point where the entire family has “Poppop jokes” which consist of merely yelling “What?” and forcing the other person to repeat themselves a thousand times.
So, Poppop didn’t hear what Mom said and asked, “What?”
“It’s the turkey neck, I saved it for you.” Mom said a little louder.
“What?” Poppop said again.
“It’s the neck, for you.” Mom yelled.
“What? Speak up, I can’t hear you.”
“It’s you, you old turkey neck,” my grandmother yelled to him.
The rest of us were laughing so loud it is no wonder he couldn’t hear them.
My grandfather passed away the following year at Thanksgiving time, this time of year always reminds me of him and what a wonderful person he was.
Years ago, when my sister and I were little, we had Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle’s house. Since there were so many of us, we kids sat at the kitchen table instead of in the dining room with the grown ups. They served us first, then went to the dining room to begin dishing out their dinners. We kids noticed something was wrong right away – the turkey was really, really spicy, unusually so! We yelled to the grown ups in the dining room that it was hot. They yelled back, blow on it. This went on for several minutes – it’s hot – blow on it – no, it’s hot – BLOW ON IT! Finally they began eating and realized we were right! My aunt went to the kitchen to see what had happened. Instead of her usual spices, she had seasoned the bird with tons of cayenne pepper! My aunt and uncle are long gone now, but we still laugh about the cayenne turkey today!