In the 80s this would have been called Blush Rose.

Mom Juice. (That's what my toddler calls my wine.)

I've met her and her mom — I worked at a community newspaper in Houma, Louisiana, where she's from, and hung out with the folks when they were shooting Beasts of the Southern Wild (small town). When the movie was just blowing up we did a few stories on her and her family and granted, this was before Oscar/Annie/et.…

I imagine him saying this.

I've never had it, honestly. But I do feel that way about the crimes against humanity that are jello salads. My mom makes this one with red hots, jello, cream cheese, applesauce, pretzels and walnuts that violates the Geneva Convention. Not to mention the cottage cheese and lime jello one that looks and tastes like a…

Cincinnati style Chili is fucking delicious. You can suck a butt, Pinkham!

Oh gah, honey. NO. I look at the gorgeous little bras, dainty, wispy things with pretty colors and designs and sigh, knowing that I need to get the standard issue, industrial grade flight suit for my jahobbies and even then I will spend much of my time shimmying, shaking and outright tucking them back in especially…

My mouth is wide open!! Oh my word!! Oh my- Wow! What in hell?

Apparently this is common. The thanksgiving cousin was the first of 4...FOUR, cousins aged 10 and older that the family ended up finding out about. Just last year we found out we had ANOTHER (this makes five) cousin who is 18 now. Like...wtf.

My great uncle used to 'travel for business' a lot in the late sixties. 'Travel for business' in this case meant 'actually has a secret family of another wife and four kids'.

One of the kids I taught in the UK was chatting to me one day and casually mentioned his brother in the year below. Now the thing was, I knew his family. I knew it was just him, his mum and his 3 year old sister at home (dad was in jail) so I challenged him on it.

When my fiance was about 18, he and two of his friends went to Spain for the summer. My fiance is a super-nerd, and he wanted to see this pretty little Spanish church, and he had also decided that it would be cool to see a Spanish service - for cultural comparison. So he wanders into this church in, like, a…

Thankfully, I do not remember the most horrible Thanksgiving of my family, but the story has been repeated so often that it is inextricable from my thoughts of the holiday.

My well-meaning but socially inept (now ex) beau decided to rescue me from an orphan Thanksgiving by inviting me to come home with him. He neglected to mention a series of dealbreakers —(a) it was a dry house, (b) we would be dining only with his small, immediate family (sister and mom), and lastly, but most…

It's time to call the Chinese place and have a drink.

The year is 2010 and I'm sixteen years old. My family Thanksgivings are overwhelmingly formal, with sixteen to twenty people dressed in suits and ties and nice dresses. Like any other family, we have two family members nobody quite likes - my great aunt and uncle.

This is not so much a horror story, more just me being a type-A nightmare that requires at a minimum not everyone around me to be a fucking incompetent dipshit. but I digress.

At every family holiday, including this one that is happening right now, my younger brother gets super high and starts talking about shit he doesn't know anything about. This year includes the topic of my sexuality. I'm straight but because I don't discuss my dating life with my family, I must be gay. My mother says…

Loved this! Now, what does one do when their family is like mine, and has a kitchen counter sagging from the weight of so many appetizers? All throughout the day, as supper is being prepared and smelling up the house wonderfully, there is hummus, tzatziki, pita, pico de gallo, blue and red corn tortilla chips,…

Breakfast skillet. Dice up everything that's solid (mixed reviews with stuffing and mash, but excellent with turkey, roasted potatoes and veggies). Serve with a sunny side up egg on top of the pile. Hot sauce. Bloody Mary.