Here’s everything that will go wrong on Thanksgiving

My family is a big family with grandparents, their seven kids and their spouses and 25 grandchildren, so you can imagine how many mouths need to be fed on Thanksgiving.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a big family, a small family, or if you’re just Friendsgiving, there are so many things that could go wrong. I’m talking straight from experience here.

First off, the obvious horror of the day is screwing up the turkey

My grandmother, known as Queen Ann – God bless her – has always been in charge of the feast. Her children are always in the kitchen helping her prepare.

And with the amount of food we have on Thanksgiving Day, the process of cooking starts early in the morning or even the day before. But sometimes, with too much wine and too many stories to get through, something is bound to suffer.

One year, Queen Ann and her kitchen staff put the turkey in way too late and there was no way it would have been done at a reasonable hour.

After some tantrums and curse words, we thanked God for Stop and Shop and their turkey delivery service. Nothing but the royal treatment for Queen Ann and her subjects.

My grandmother hasn’t cooked a turkey on her own since – that’s for peasants.

There’s always someone you have to wait on

My family is notorious for being late to everything. The arrival time to a party, meeting, work, or anything of importance is merely just a suggestion, as the world revolves around us, obviously. The party doesn’t get started till we’ve arrived.

Remember: “We’ll be there in an hour” means three hours, at least. So every phone call to other family members who are presumably “on their way” is one that will probably upset my grandfather. You’re making him wait longer to eat.

Drama always happens

Tensions run high in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. There is teasing and name-calling, but it is all in good humor as we prepare for the meal of a lifetime.

Or someone got drunk the night before and said or did something stupid and we are either a) looking for them b) shunning them until dinner or c) making fun of them relentlessly until he or she snaps and storms off.

But at the end of the day, we all love each other and laugh about it.

You always have to make another trip (or five) to the food/liquor store

No one ever remembers everything on the first trip to Costco. There will be a return trip, or maybe more than one.

And the stress of cooking dinner and entertaining the rest of the family causes the alcohol to diminish sooner than expected.

The rolls are ALWAYS burnt

The rolls are usually last on the list to be cooked. Ideally, the rolls need to be warm, fluffy and soft to enjoy.

Again, there is usually too much wine or too many conversations going that seem to always distract every member of my family.

Over the years, I’ve grown accustomed to the taste of burnt, hard rolls because the memories behind them are priceless. I don’t think my grandfather thinks the same way.

Little things like burned rolls or a delayed turkey don’t matter in the long run. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is everyone is together and under a roof for the holidays.