We Want To Hear About Your Biggest, Most Hilarious Thanksgiving Fail

The made-from-scratch chiffon cake stood majestically on an antique crystal cake stand with a cut glass pedestal that sparkled when the light hit it just so. Its soaring height meant it would be light, airy, and moist, true to a family Thanksgiving tradition.

The cake stand and cake recipe had been handed down from one generation to another at least as far back as twins Alpha and Omega, who never spent more than a day or two apart and would be around 200 now. No one alive knew a thing about Alpha and Omega beyond their memorable names and swoon-worthy confections.

Confident that the cake did justice to the twins’ legacy, the host silently scanned the guests, waiting for ecstatic joy to spread across their faces as they savored every mouth-watering bite.

That legendary airiness? It was as if a rubber tire had been inflated to hold up the cake.

The guests chewed, politely at first to spare their host any embarrassment, and then more vigorously as they tried to break down the growing mass in their mouth enough that the Heimlich maneuver wouldn’t come into play. Their eyes rolled and bulged as they worked to vanquish the cake, but in eventual defeat, they spat it into their napkins as discreetly as possible without expelling it like a projectile.

“I’m not eating mine,” the host said, letting her guests off the hook of good manners, dangling though it was after everyone nearly choked to death. “Please don’t feel as if etiquette obliges you to eat yours.”

Their relief was palpable.

Worse than a classic Thanksgiving mishap, this real-life failure broke with generations of family tradition. Not only was there no chiffon cake, but there were no backup pies — because, dang it, the cake should have tasted as good as it looked.

This #ThanksgivingFail marked the beginning — appropriately, the alpha — of a new tradition that kept the twins’ legacy intact. The only requirement of a Thanksgiving dessert now is that it must look elegant on their cake stand.

What’s your epic Thanksgiving fail? A treasured family recipe gone as wrong as the “Alpha and Omega cake”? Turkey that made everyone sick? A fire in the kitchen or some other emergency or calamity?

We want to start the holiday season off with good humor and mirth. We may use some of your responses to the survey below for a story later on in the season. Rest assured, we don’t collect email addresses.