15 Thanksgiving Dinner Disasters (And How to Avoid Them)

We learn from our mistakes, but it's less painful to learn from other people's mistakes. Stories of Thanksgiving disasters can be quite funny and they will become part of the family tradition to tell them again every year. On Thanksgiving, millions of people across the US are preparing the same meal and screwing it up in classic ways. Like neglecting to quarantine the family pets away from the turkey.

Take Frank Gunsberg of Ramsey, New Jersey, who was hosting a dinner for 20 guests when he realized both his golden retriever and the turkey were missing. He found them behind a cabinet—the bird on the floor, unmarred but for a few puncture wounds. Though his wife protested, Gunsberg wiped down the bird and served it anyway. "Those guests are hearing this story for the first time," he told NorthJersey.com.

Then there was the case of a chihuahua that climbed inside a bird. "A frantic new mom hosting her first Thanksgiving feast had a Chihuahua that climbed up onto the kitchen table and into the turkey, and she couldn’t get the dog out," writes Todd Sigg on the Illinois Poison Control Center blog. "I told her to pull really hard and yank the little guy out ... I could understand the awesomeness of it from the dog’s point of view, a meat room."

Even if you don't need tips on preparing the Thanksgiving feast, you'll get a kick out of what went wrong for other folks in an article at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: TheKohser)