Your Greatest Holiday Party Faux Pas

Some Pissing Contest themes are tried and true. That becomes especially apparent during the month of December, when this column becomes pretty festive: expect nothing but holiday-related content for the remainder of 2019, ya Grinches. Kicking things off, as Jezebel has done in the past, is our Holiday Party-themed special. I want to know about your greatest holiday party faux pas. Did you accidentally get too drunk and forgot your actions? Were very confused when everyone kept giving you a high-five the following Monday morning? Did you once bring borderline lethal brownies to the office celebration and cause company-wide diarrhea? Maybe you went home with the hired Santa Claus actor from the event? Who knows! You know, and I’d like to know now, too. Tell me in the comments below. I’m looking for fun responses, but feel free to share your depressing stories of regret, too, if you want. It’s the merriest time of the year, and I’m not one to shut down creativity.

But first, let’s chat about the winners from the last Pissing Contest. Here are the tales of your most disastrous Thanksgiving meals:

Ree-sah, you win:

My father’s new wife hosted. She cooked the turkey in a plastic bag. The bag deflated and stuck to the turkey’s skin so the skin didn’t roast and get crispy. The cooked turkey looked like it was stuck in a condom and then skin came off with the condom. It was not appetizing site. However, that wasn’t the worst dish though. Her son made mashed potatoes that were gritty and tasted like grass. I realized they were not fully cooked. However, her son, the mashed potato maker who also proclaimed to love mashed potatoes told everyone at the table that he had makes them healthier by using hemp milk which explained the grass flavor. While talking about his (in)famous mashed potatoes he also said “I don’t add butter or salt either since potatoes have enough flavor!”

TheOtherNico, I am so sorry:

Disastrous meal #2- for one reason or another, most of my friends and and family either had to work, or were out of town for the holiday. I decided to take myself to Denny’s and have meal there. The group at the next table noticed I was alone and proceeded to make fun of me until I cried. The server cussed them out and gave me free pie.

PrinceAlBurtReynolds, this story is a mess, but I wanted to hear about bad meals. The last line made your case:

Twenty or so years ago, I and my four brothers are at my grandmother’s house in a wealthy suburb of Boston. Our unmedicated, bipolar mother is there, and she’s agitated and starting to drink (she went through periods of thinking God had cured her of her bipolarity and would then abandon her meds, and why not a week before Thanksgiving?). There are several other aunts and uncles there, and our politically conservative grandfather.

An aunt, an uncle, and I are making frequent trips to the kitchen to deal with dinner. Grandpa is regaling my brothers with various strong-worded opinions about minority groups, and our mother is getting amped. One of my brothers starts talking about hunting, and my most boneheaded other brother slips out to his car and comes back with a rifle. This elicits a round of protest from a couple of the more reasonable folks, but Jack assures everyone it’s not loaded and he just wanted to show Gramp the rifle. There’s admiring and mock-aiming out the back doors, but generally everyone behaves themselves, but Mom’s getting shittier by the moment. She goes off to the bathroom and I and her sister are conferring about WTF to do if this gets worse, which is looking likely. I remember something on the stove, go running back to make sure nothing burned, and am stirring like a madwoman when I hear BOOM. I sprint back to the living room and there’s fucking chaos because Mom picked up the rifle (loaded, it turns out) and aimed it out the back door and fired, hitting the beautiful vintage Jaguar in the driveway next door, which now had a neat hole punched in its door.

Someone took the rifle away from mom, two of us ran outside, one of the neighbors ran out toward the car but were then screamed at to get back inside. Either they or another house called the police and in minutes there were four cops with guns drawn, everyone in my family had their hands in the air and the two of us outside were lying on the ground, and in the end, my mother and brother were arrested (my mother for the obvious reason and my brother for yelling at the cops and resisting arrest). And dinner burned.

slowtobond, I am so sorry:

I was house sitting and came down with what we called my “stomach thing.” Debilitating internal pain for what seemed like no reason, which meant no one quite believed me, including doctors. I made spinach dip for my family dinner before the pain was too much for anything but the fetal position. Tried to tell my mom on the phone that I couldn’t make it and she blew up at me telling me that this would be my last Thanksgiving with my dad, who was receiving hospice care, and that I would regret being selfish. Couldn’t take the absolute rage and hung up, crying with pain. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, I was just in so much pain. Was inundated with phone calls, my mother was livid, and my sister showed up at the house but I didn’t answer the door. Did not make it dinner but tried to eat some spinach dip, couldn’t, threw it up.

Ten days later my dad died.

The next Thanksgiving stress made my stomach thing so bad, I went to the emergency room, where I was finally diagnosed with a birth defect and was immediately scheduled for surgery. My mom didn’t tell anyone that I was having surgery and left me alone in the hospital.

E=MC Hammmered, lol:

Didn’t ruin the entire meal, but we still talk about the time in 2008 that my dad, the designated gravy maker, pull a box of what he thought was chicken or turkey stock out of the fridge and instead proceeded to use concentrated chai latte mix as the base for the gravy.

Nanya, this is the most solid case against teenagers that I have ever heard:

I’ve got a great one. About 10 years ago, when I was still in my mid 20s and broke as most mid-20 year old are, I received an invitation from a female cousin to come over for Thanksgiving.

Being single at the time, and understanding that a lot of distant family would be there, I agreed. She asked if I could perhaps make a dessert and she would bake one as well.

I said I would be happy to. At the time, I lived in a very small apartment with an old fashion stove from what must have been the 50s or 60s. I asked my cousin if it would be ok if I prepped the pie at home but put it in one of her two ovens and bake it at her house since my oven was too small to fit a standard pie tin. She said, sure, come on over two hours before and “hang”.

So Thanksgiving day comes, I show up at the agreed upon time and load in my pie. She then asks me if I could also help her prep some of the other sides. I said I would be happy to.

She then charges me with COOKING THE ENTIRE THANKSGIVING MEAL with the exception of the Turkey, which her husband was cooking in the other oven. I was a bit surprised by this but figured, what the hell, I’m happy to help.

My cousin had a son who was about 2 years old and I figured that she would be taking care of him. I was wrong. Inbetween prepping all 7 side dishes for Thanksgiving as well as my pie, I found myself chasing after her son who was clearly being neglected while his mother drank martinis and his father played video games in the “office” on the other side of the house. I even had to break from cooking to take her son outside and walk around the block because he was so upset by being ignored and neglected. So not only did I make all the side dishes with no notice, I was caring for her son and she wasn’t even hanging out with me, she was in the other room drinking by herself.

To compound the issue, her alcoholic mother and father show up with their two bratty teenage daughters and immediately start drinking with my cousin and offer no help (Her mother would die two years later of alcoholism and her stepfather had the same fate 3 years after that).

The two daughters decided they wanted to make mac and cheese balls similar to those served at Claim Jumpers for themselves (just for themselves, not to share) and proceeded to REMOVE the stuffing I was baking from the second oven and put their mac and cheese balls in. I was only half way through with the sides.

Desperate to get a Thanksgiving dinner on the table that wasn’t mine, I asked their parents if they could intercede and they said no. My cousin was no help either.

The two brats acted like I was the a**hole when I asked if they could wait while I finished the Thanksgiving sides. So, while waiting for these two brats to tire of cooking their mac and cheese balls, I had to stand by and watch.

Afterwards, the 12 adults there were forced to sit and watch as the two bratty teens played Guitar Hero for 2 hours. No other tv was allowed. We were simply supposed to sit there and watch these two teens play Guitar Hero, no rotations, no breaks. Again I was the a**hole for saying, maybe we could take a break and watch a holiday movie, play a game, or even watch football.

And if you think this Thanksgiving was bad, you should hear about what happened that year at Christmas.

PS – The brats didn’t even end up eating the mac and cheese balls, because, in their words, it tasted like ass.