My Best and Worst Holiday Entertaining Experiences

Worst Experience - The first Thanksgiving after getting married, my parents were away for some forgotten reason and my husband's family was celebrating on Friday because his firefighter brother had to work the holiday. So we invited my only other local relatives, an aunt and uncle, to dinner. I had found a recipe for a stuffed turkey breast cooked in the crock pot. Both my husband and I came down with a stomach virus the day before, but we figured (correctly) that it was just a 24-hour bug and we'd be OK by dinner time. However, chopping onions early in the morning while still nauseated was absolute hell. My husband took it in shifts with me, but we've rarely been more miserable in our lives. There was a happy ending. The dinner turned out fine and we both felt OK in the evening.

Best Experience--Far less memorable. My husband's family lives mostly in or north of the San Fernando Valley, while we live in Orange County. Plus several of his family members enjoy entertaining much more than I do. So normally we can't get them to come to our house. But one year we managed to coax part of the clan down for a holiday (I've forgotten which one). I remember very little except that I made a new soup with mushrooms and wine. That was very experimental for me because neither my husband nor I would ordinarily eat "fungus." But something about the recipe appealed to me, and it turned out really good. Everyone liked it, even my husband and I. (Unfortunately, I have no idea what became of that recipe.)