Thanksgiving At Its Weirdest w/ Nora. B. Peevy

Hey, there, weirdos! What are you thankful for? I’m thankful that Thanksgiving gets just as weird as any other holiday! Need proof? Well…let’s start with some of the weirdest Thanksgiving events and traditions people are out there doing every Turkey Day:

The Flaming Turkey Toss – invented in Bloomington, Indiana in 2005 in which a frozen turkey is set on fire, tied to a chain, and hurled across a football field.

The Turkey Toss – invented in the mid-2000s and 2020, where contestants compete to see how far they can toss a frozen turkey.

The Turkey Trot – First documented in Buffalo, NY in 1986 there were only six competitors ran in a cross-country race of 8 kilometers. It was held by the YMCA. Today many people dress up as turkeys and run the race to raise money for charity.

Frozen Turkey Bowling – This was first invented in 1988 at a Lucky Grocery Store in Newport, CA when clerk Derric Johnson saw his manager slide a frozen turkey, accidentally knocking over a soda bottle. There is even a rule called “The Gobbler” in which you can get three strikes in a row.

Turkey Calling – Hunters demonstrate their best turkey calls for the judges.

The Presidential pardoning of the turkey – which began in 1989 officially.

Wishbone breaking – in which two people pull on the turkey wishbone. The person with the largest piece gets their wish granted.

Dish assignments drawing. All guests present write their dishes they brought on a piece of paper. The papers are then put into a hat and everyone must draw a paper. This is the dish you bring to Thanksgiving dinner the following year.

Turduckens – The infamous boneless chicken stuffed inside a turkey.

Stuffing your turkey with cereal like corn flakes or Cap N’ Crunch.

Turkey eating competitions! Oh, the gluttony!

The North Tech pie-throwing in Florissant, Missouri where students launch pies at faculty and administration.

That all sounds really fun, but now that we’ve covered the weirdest holiday events and traditions, how about the weirdest Thanksgiving foods?

Thanksgiving soda? Really? Ever craved a soda with hints of turkey broth, sage, and rosemary? If that piques your curiosity, you can try Jones Special Turkey and Gravy Soda (No I did not make this up). Click here for the testers who tested it so you don’t have to do it!

Hmmm. What else, what else…? Ever heard of aspic?

Aspic is like gelatin, but it has a savory meat flavor. It’s made from cooking down your meat and bones until eventually there’s nothing but a gel left to chill in the pot. Sometimes it would turn out perfectly clear, but other times it would turn out with bits of meat or bone still floating in it. Sounds delicious, right? Wished you’d stumbled on this article a bit sooner, perhaps?

Well, Aspic was invented in the 14^th Century, so there’s a good chance someone in your family has eaten it. It was traditionally used as a food preservative, but then in the 1950s when girls were wearing poodle skirts and atomic bombs were being tested, it became a popular food craze for a minute. People were going gaga for aspic and using it to prepare their entire Thanksgiving meals! The horrors! They were layering turkey dinners like a jello mold: a layer of aspic and then one of mashed potatoes, then more aspic, then the cranberries, then more aspic, and then one of green beans. How wackadoodle is that? Being able to watch your Thanksgiving dinner jiggle and shine under the dining room lights while you counted the layers of food trapped in the aspic? Yeck! This year when you complain about having to go over to Aunt Betty’s or Grandma Josie’s house for Thanksgiving dinner, just be thankful they’re not serving it in aspic.

And I’m not done yet! Why would I close the article with aspic??

How about some of the weirdest Thanksgiving parade floats, which surely traumatized young crowd members, rather than created wholesome memories, like they were intended to do!

I’ll leave you with these disturbing images of Thanksgiving floats gone wrong. And until next time, I hope your holiday is joyful…and weird.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nora B. Peevy is a cat trapped in a human’s body. Please send help or tuna. She is an Olympic champion sleeper and toils away for JournalStone/ Trepidatio Publishing as a submission reader, a reviewer for Hellnotes, and reads scripts for The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. Ms. Peevy recently took the position writing nonfiction articles for The Weird Wide Web. She also is a syndicate author for Thrill Ride eZine and has taken up freelance editing as well as editing for Unveiling Nightmares. Her quirky tales are published by Eighth Tower Press, Carnage Press, The Sudden Fictions Podcast, Unveiling Nightmares, and other places. For the Sake of Brigid, her first novelette just came out in May of 2024 and her first novel, Flesh-eating Turtles!!!, is available now.