BS Contests: Hoodies for A Horrible Holiday

Obviously, we really like alliteration. We also really like hoodies (we'll get to this in a minute), and we honestly love the holidays. Our favorite holiday of all time is probably Thanksgiving - which makes it that much more mind-blowing that it is, without a doubt, the most miserable day of the year for us.

It wasn't always so bad. When we were wee (see, there's that alliteration again!), we would go to our grandparents' 75 acre farm in the middle of Pennsylvania. Aunts, uncles, and cousins from far and wide - hitting maybe 40 deep, overall - would come to celebrate. We would have a homecooked meal, perhaps a tractor-pulled hayride. We definitely remember jumping off rafters on the second story of the barn into hay bales. Our mother was not around to see this - our then-delinquent, now ultra-religious uncle was watching us. And our older sister. We did not get hurt. Our (other) uncle ran around the house in our grandmother's curlers and robe, our older cousins played cards with us until we couldn't stay awake any longer.

This all changed when our grandparents got older and moved into a retirement 'village'. It was still ok - homecooked, family. And then, our grandfather died on Thanksgiving. That kind of set the bar for terrible Thanksgivings. Years since have included:

Wearing nametags at dinner (to introduce step-grandfather's family to our own, though it should be noted that we loved them very much)

Being thrown out of dinner for refusing to dance the Macarena

Dinner being prepared by cooks at a retirement home, so it was low-sodium and easy to chew

Dinner being held in a restaurant that was essentially a diner with carpet

The boisterous family of 40+ being reduced to a table of 8

The 8 discussing being laid off, unemployment, Parkinson's and impotence (honestly, as in our aunt [by marriage] asking our mother about her husband/our uncle/our mom's brother about his impotence)

A rather mean-spirited game where you have a mystery gift exchange of wrapped presents, and we ended up with a pie - while our sister ended up with a coveted Farside calendar

We know this sounds like such a downer, but we honestly have to laugh about it because if we don't, we will probably cry a lot. When we heard that this year, one of our immediate family members would not be joining us, and our aunt was having the cooks in <i>her</i> retirement village cook for us, we actually started to cry.

What does all this have to do with anything else? Well. We want to hear everyone else's stories so we don't feel quite as sorry for ourselves. It doesn't have to be particularly tragic or sad - but we want to hear your most ridiculous, silly, outlandish, unbelievable, pathetic, sad, tragic, amusing holiday story you've got. As a prize, we've been lucky enough to score 3 Super Hood hoodies from Champion to give away. We've got one on now - as we are, it's been mentioned, always cold. And we are not cold, and we look rather cute.  And quite frankly, during this season we have been known to pull the hood up over our heads and pull the string tight so no one can see us. Er, so we can't see them. So. Tell us your best holiday story (any holiday!), and you could win one. We have three to give away - red, light blue, and a pale pink. The sizes claim to be L/XL, but we find they fit more like S/M. Send us your best stories here, and be sure to indicate what color hoodie is your first choice. We'll pick one winner for each color, so three winners total.

Entries are due by the end of the day, Monday. EST.

-LB

Comments

[Ms. Fab]

My grandfather also died on Thanksgiving. It was the first time I'd ever seen my dad cry.

Now every Thanksgiving my dad and I donate turkeys to the local food bank and tell stories about grandpa. It's our way of making something that could be a real downer of a memory into something better.

[FashionKitty]

You are so right, the women's large does fit like a small/ medium ... I have a red one.

[tracey]

If it's any consolation, my birthday is on November 23rd, so invariably it falls within a day or two of thanksgiving - or occasionally right on it, to rub sand in the wound. So my birthday is always moose munch, given a brief wave in passing as everyone fixates on turkey and family related drama. Which this year was my sister announcing that she wanted thanksgiving at her house, but did we mind making a couple of sides? and then calling two days before Thanksgiving and saying she needed us (mom and I) to make ALL the side dishes, but she would do the turkey....and then called us at 3 pm on the day before thanksgiving and announced she'd gotten busy and didn't have time to deal with the turkey, so could we....Thank god for Boston Market, that's all I can say. I had to cook an entire meal, pick up a cooked turkey, and shlep it to my sister's....

She's already talking about Christmas dinner at her house. Can you two adopt me instead?

[Ashley]

I am sorry for you but glad for me that I don't have any such stories! The worst Thanksgiving I have had came when I opted to not go home to Texas from Washington, DC because a friend asked me to stay in DC with her (her family had a trip planned and she did not have anyone to be with on Thanksgiving.) I was actually glad to not have to travel even though I would miss my family terrbly (I would see then at Christmas though.) So, the night before Thanksgiving, we did some grocery shopping and rented some movies. The next morning, I went to the gym. When I returned, my friend had left me a note saying her boyfriend (who had actually only been in the picture for a few weeks) canceled his trip at the last minute and wanted her to come spend Thanskgiving with him. So she left me high and dry with no plans! It was a lonely day but a telling one!

[Paula]

So this year I went to my boyfriend's family's house. It wasn't a big deal, I'd been there before. I used to be a professional cook, so my boyfriend volunteered me to cook dinner. Which was fine, although all I'd offered to do is make a pie. Then we show up, his mom has decided we're not making the pie I want but the pie she wants. Ok, whatever. Than we wake up the next morning at 9:00 and she's made everything (for our dinner at 5:00) because she 'wasn't sure when we were going to wake up' but apparently I could still make the turkey. Which I start doing at 1:00. She then snaps at me about what temperature I want to cook the turkey at and I burst into tears and spend the rest of the day crying in the bathroom on the phone to my mom. This is in addition to her picking at me about 1. why we arrived so late, 2. what I was wearing, and 3. looking visibly relieved when I discussed my plans to leave for grad school next fall.

The woman hates me, I guess. At least I know, huh?