Are you even a real family if you DON'T have at least one argument during Thanksgiving dinner?

No one dreams of clocking in while everyone else is home savoring pumpkin pie and watching holiday classics. Working on Thanksgiving feels like a necessary evil for those in essential roles, but even then, the thought of missing out on the wholesome chaos of a family gathering is hard to pass up. So, when this employee was finally lucky enough to snag her first holiday off, it was like making it out of the new hire phase and into the big leagues. She was thrilled to finally spend the holidays w…

Hosting family events is no small thing. Letting people into your intimate space who you have a close and (possibly) troubled history with, resulting from problematic relationship dynamics, presents all sorts of problems. It's basically like opening a Pandora's box of sorts of complex family trauma. Usually, the problematic ones will be rogue cousins or uncles who you just don't see eye to eye with, but occasionally, it will be your own problematic parents. This woman found herself at a breakin…

Hosting events is a lot of work; there's a house to be cleaned, food to be prepped, and a lot of general setup that needs to be taken care of. When it's family, it's even more so to do—it's probably a good idea to hide the things your family won't approve of and save yourself the judgment. Family hosting schedules help to ease the burden of any one person having to host too often, and the reality is that for a member of the family to drop from hosting duties places a disproportionate amount of…

As Thanksgiving approaches, countless family members across the country are clenching their jaws and growing more and more tense about the logistical and social pressures of impending family gatherings. Here, we have a 38-year-old woman who has been hosting Thanksgiving dinner for her 20-person extended family every year for the majority of the last decade. She used to enjoy these hosting responsibilities, but as time went on, she became resentful of the complete lack of support she received fr…

This family is having a major argument over what to eat for a holiday meal ! Each family has their own unique traditions and menus for their holidays. For many people, the meat depends on the holiday: for some, ham is reserved for Easter, while cooking a big turkey is reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You've got to have a lot of side dishes too: many people eat mashed potatoes, green beans, cornbread, cranberry sauce, collard greens, sweet yams, beans, or myriad other dishes. That way, e…

Once the family got a little too comfortable in their host's home, things got stickier than the kid's table mac and cheese spilled on their opulent Berber rug

People like to think of themselves as 'good people', and will go to great lengths to prove to themselves and others that they are decent, kind, welcoming, and helpful. Then comes a day when they wish they could take it all back, and that is usually the day when all their kindness comes back to bite them… Hard. In this case, a few roommates heard that their neighbor was being evicted, and it being Thanksgiving, they just didn't think it was right to leave her out in the cold. So, they did what a…

One guest got up on the wrong side of the bed one morning, and decided to take it out on a poor front desk clerk, who could only reply with the corporate script she had been given. The guest was aghast when she found out that the hotel did not provide a Thanksgiving meal, and promptly demanded a discount. It was not the hotel clerk's first rodeo, and she politely explained to the guest that with all due respect, the hotel was not required to provide a Thanksgiving meal… Obviously, the Karen gue…

This SIL went out of her way to use the wrong “tablecloth.”

If you have ever worked part-time or seasonal jobs, you know how hectic schedules can get, especially during holidays when most people take time off to travel or be with their family. The open shifts are sadly diverted to the few employees who can still work, leaving them slammed with overtime for their so-called part-time gig.

Nothing creates treasured memories faster than someone ruining a Thanksgiving turkey in front of the whole family. Hosting Thanksgiving is a big job. Even if you assign some relatives a food to bring, you suddenly realize, “Uh oh… I'm the one who has to make the turkey.” When you're cooking a giant turkey like that, there are specific rules you need to follow. It needs to defrost, be stuffed and basted, then put in the oven for a certain amount of hours, depending on the weight. I can't speak f…

There is no such thing as Thanksgiving without a little family drama. It's part of what makes this Holiday so memorable. I'll always remember the year a family member wasn't allowed to leave the hotel room because they were under the weather. Then, there's that time someone spilled a side dish all over my hair. And who could forget the time no one wanted to ask the old lady in the room if she had changed out of her onesie at all the whole weekend? This kind of family tension is perhaps the most…

It's that time of the year again, everybody! When you work at a place that needs to keep running during the holidays. This can include the service industry, retail, and even tech! Bet you have never even thought about how sight security and coding needs to continue smoothly even during the holidays. That means employees are trading shifts left and right to try and get a day off to spend with their loved ones. Most places you can just discuss it like adults amongst your coworkers and figure out…

Each family has at least one cherished memory of the time someone botched Thanksgiving dinner really badly. You know the kind of story: an aunt promises to bake the turkey , and roasts it for 6 hours… in a cold oven. Or maybe you had a dad who was so proud of his fresh apple pie, only to immediately drop it on the floor, where the dog then ate it. These Thanksgiving memories are often infuriating in the moment, and then become hilarious family memories as soon as the fam eaten their proper holi…

How are we expected to just go back to work like this?