Who here would be cooking ANYTHING but turkey on Thanksgiving if your family would let you?

[hunter]

13. When I was growing up the big holiday wars were usually about religion.

Except for one Thanksgiving my parents agreed to host and they decided it would be a vegetarian feast.

OMG!

My mom's family were ranchers. My dad's family were dairy. They hunted, they fished, they were carnivores.

My grandpa stormed out of the house, drove off in his Cadillac, and returned an hour or two later with ham and turkey. I have no idea where he got it.

After that catastrophe my grandparents hosted Thanksgiving. My mom's parents would usually make restaurant reservations, my dad's parents always had it at their home with the traditional turkey.

I have Thanksgiving PTSD, not from the vegetarian Thanksgiving, but one Thanksgiving my parents hosted when I was in college. Everyone was acting so horribly, mostly my crazy grandmother, that I left angry, not knowing I was headed into the darkest period of my life. That started when a church acquaintance of one of my college housemates (they were all away for Thanksgiving) tried to kill herself in our bathtub. Soon after I wrecked my car, got into a fight with a Teaching Assistant, got an "F" in that class because I wasn't allowed to finish it, and was then "asked" to take a time-out from school, the implied threat being permanent expulsion.

I hate turkey. I'll cook it for family, but under duress.