Another thread got me thinking of memorable Thanksgivings for ya'll. Please share. I'll go first with a few, good and bad.

One year during law school I was living in a new area and a law school buddy invited me to his families Thanksgiving in the mountains. Really pretty snowy mountains and my first time in the Rockies actually.
The night before one of the family members was snacking and started choking and nobody did anything - they just sat and watched this poor guy turn purple and blue. I jumped up and ran over to him and gave him the Heimlich and saved his life! A very memorable Thanksgiving.

Another year, maybe the last year my mom was with us, at my sibling's house, some garland fell onto a candle in the bathroom. Started a fire. Nobody noticed but my mother said she smelled smoke. Sure enough, the bathroom was ablaze - whole wall was on fire. I was closest and yelled for 911 and a fire extinguisher. The extinguisher was spent. Someone called 911 and myselt and others used towels and trays and pots of water to *barely* put out the fire. Another 30 seconds and the house would have been lost. I mean,that fire grew to an inferno in about 1 minute. It was terrifying.

Lost my mom on 22 November 2002. Was a very hard Thanksgiving. After her funeral I came back to my home state and at the time, my best friend was supposed to pick me up from the airport. When I landed, he had instead decided at the last moment to run off with some random girl to her out-of-state Thanksgiving and left me stranded at the airport on Thanksgiving. No ride. 40 minutes from home. It was not a good holiday... My gf left her family to come pick me up, and then I joined them for their really nice Thanksgiving meal.

Wow those are something!

One year I was stuck in China. Normal workday there! Family really missed me, and made me feel extra loved when I got home.

Another year when we lived in Lynden, some friends in Mulkilteo invited us down. About, well just passed 1/2 way down south both front and rear left tires punctured by a broken license plate frame some POS car or truck. I barely got the car over to the side. Had to have car towed to Mt Vernon. Called some friends there and they fed us and we had a great time. Spent the night in a hotel got tires at Les Schwab and drove home Friday AM. Talk about being thankful.

Ex wife's family made the driest turkey possible. Like.....it made turkey jerky seem moist. Powdered turkey would have been more appealing.
I made the turkey the next year. They had no idea you could cook a turkey that was that tasty and juicy.

Heh.....
Ex wife used to get a free fresh turkey coupon from work every Thanksgiving (Christmas was a ham).
Had 14 people coming over, so told one of the workers to go look in the back for a big one.

This thing was so big that with the rack set on the lowest level the breast was almost touching the broiler burner.
Forgot what it weighed.

Cooked, cooked, and cooked it some more....still not done.
Ended up cutting off some meat and microwaving it to enjoy our late dinner.

At least twice remember eating a turkey cooked with the 'bonus bags'.

I used to be the go to guy for people who didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving.
Brought them over to my apartment.
Really enjoyed that.

My mother used to make the most huge spread for thanksgiving I don`t know how she did it with a small kitchen and everything always turned out perfect. But when I was younger I made my living as a cook and this one year I was working at a place that actually closed for Thanksgiving and my sister invite me to her place for dinner and promissed I could just relax and not do any cooking. My sister can cook but as I found out from her kids and husband she could not make gravy that was edible. When she drained the drippings and was getting ready to make gravy I heard 2 of her daughters crying mom don`t make the gravy PLEASE PLEASE don`t make the gravy, can we please have Uncle David make the gravy. She told them she had promissed me she wouldn`t ask me to cook. I stood and watched for a minute or two and was laughing under my breath when her oldest daughter came in and asked what was going on and she turned to me and begged for me to make the gravy. I ended up making it and after dinner the kids and her husband thanked me for such and great thanksgiving meal, she got offended and started going of about how she did everything but the gravy. After this it was a family joke who got me for Thanksgiving.