Secret Chefs and Thankful Games: Readers' Best Thanksgiving Stories

One week ago, . Here are the ones we received. You can still add yours in the comments section below.

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Twenty-seven years ago, I was a young mother hosting my first ever Thanksgiving dinner. I was really nervous, and pretty sure my Italian mother-in-law was worried that Irish girl her only son had chosen for his bride was going to boil the bird. I called my father (who was the gourmet cook I wasn't) and asked for some advice. He assured me my in laws would love the meal I would serve.

He arrived early at my house that Thanksgiving morning and prepared a feast fit a king. He then left before I served all that delicious food as if I had made it all myself! For five years my Dad did this for me. On the sixth year he supposedly overslept, but I know he was late on purpose to force me to start doing the cooking myself.

My Dad (John Coghlan) is gone now, but every Thanksgiving I am so thankful that he let my mother-in-law think I could cook long before I really could.

Sheila Vuckovich

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We used to have to go around my aunt's table and say three things we were thankful for and you could not repeat another person's choices. It was not the easiest because we had over 20 people!

Melissa Faith Evans-Madorma, via the Mokena Patch Facebook page