If you want to see all the stories, visit the comments section of the original post. All of the stories tend to fall into certain genres—cooking nightmares, drunken exploits, family drama, death, illness, and general destruction—so we've picked out some of our favorites so that you don't have to read all 500 or so horror stories like some of us had to. Here are our runners up. The titles are ours, but these stories are all yours:

• Most Inspirational: Babygay's Escape to the Big City by BettyCrocker.
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• Grossest Cooking Mishap: One Seriously Nasty Salad by MomOf3WildKids.
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• Saddest Passing: Mom's Dream House of Death by Saelmar.
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• Most Delinquent Family Member: Stripper Sister-In-Law on the Run from the Law by Lysergic Asset.
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• Cooking Experiment Gone Wild: The Proof Is in the Pesto by ThatGirlInNewYork.
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• Best Bad Turkey Disposal/Funniest Punchline: Bird on the Lawn by RollsRoyceRevenge.
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• Stupidest Family Fight: Patch Adams Rules by Allyzay.
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• Worst Plumbing Accident: Shit Hits the Fan by Scairborn.
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• Best Drinking Contest: Grandma and Grandpa Go Shot for Shot by Meredith.Terry.
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• The Scariest Night Out on the Town: A Real Life Episode of Cheaters by WickedlySane.
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• Most Destructive: Burning Down the House by Willow150.
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• Self-Referential Award for Excellence: Thanks for Giving Me Something to Put on Gawker by TheExperience.
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• The PETA Award for Animal Cruelty: Gobble on This by Kimrod.
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• The Overly Dramatic Oscar: My Mother the Drag Queen by RabbityThings.

And the Ultimate Award for Thanksgiving Horror and the $50 prize for a bottle of Wild Turkey goes to DrunkExpatWriter, for his two-fold tale of his family behaving badly. The full story is reprinted below for everyone to enjoy and so that we can all laugh at his pain to make our pain a little bit more bearable.

Here's the winning tale:

Ok. I have two stories for you. Roughly 13 years ago my family got together at my parent's house for Thanksgiving. My step mom and her brother have always had a "tumultuous" relationship. After dinner they got into an argument over who loved their long dead mother more. Shit was thrown around, plates broken, the usual. My dad tried to calm them down to no avail. So, he decided he had to distract them. He'd just gotten a Dodge conversion van, so he went out and fired it up and started ramming it at the cars of all our relatives - totaling roughly 10 cars until my step mom and uncle noticed and stopped fighting with each other in order to yell at him.

Now, second story. The next year, my dad decided that having people over to the house for Thanksgiving was a bad idea. So he booked us all into this super fancy restaurant and paid to put all the relatives in a swank hotel next door - on the assumption that people would be more well behaved in public.

Everything went well during the meal, until the check arrived. The waiter then put the check near my uncle rather than my step mom (who insists on handling all the financial shit for her and my dad.)

Her brother then said "See, you can talk about liberation all you want, but classy people know a man is supposed to pay."

My step mom then upended the table and grabbed the carving knife and tried to stab her brother to death. He took me, my dad and my brother to literally hurl her off of him.

In a matter of minutes the cops arrived (small New Jersey town.)

While my step mom and my uncle were trying to tell the cops they didn't want to press charges against each other, my dad walked up to one of the cop cars, unzipped and pissed on the cop car's tires.

Flash forward two hours later to me, my then-wife and various cousins pooling our money to bail all three of them out of jail.

Congratulations go to DrunkExpatWriter for giving us reason to believe our family isn't so bad. You can either pick up your booze at Gawker HQ (the lawyers say mailing it's dicey) or email Gabriel to tell him where to send a $50 check to spend on the libation of your choice.

Feel free to continue to add stories to the official compendium of misery in the original post, and in the comments, tells us what a crappy job we did picking the winner and provide links to your favorite tales (you can get a permalink to the comments by clicking on the date below the commenter's name).

And while we're glad that we didn't have to live through any of these tales of terror, we would like to thank you all for the memories. Christmas is going to be a doozy!

Pat Robertson, great Jesus-like man:

So you are dealing with not a religion. You're dealing with a political system. And I think we should treat it as such and treat its adherences as such as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group.

Can you top that, bearded Forbes columnist Tunku Varadarajan?

[We] must ask whether we are confronting a new phenomenon of violent rage, one we might dub—disconcertingly—"Going Muslim." This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American—a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood—discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.

Not the friendly donut vendor!

The difference between "going postal," in the conventional sense, and "going Muslim," in the sense that I suggest, is that there would not necessarily be a psychological "snapping" point in the case of the imminently violent Muslim; instead, there could be a calculated discarding of camouflage—the camouflage of integration—in an act of revelatory catharsis.

Yes, I've heard of cases of Muslims shedding their "American" skins like so many reptilian aliens from 'V.' Provocative point, Respectable Columnist Tunku Varadarajan. Vote for your favorite outrage now!

[Pic via]

Some of your entries were good, some were bad, and some were very, very ugly. We whittled it down to ten. Vote for the one you like best and it just might win. We're still going to pick our favorite anyway—this isn't American Idol, this is the real world—but popular opinion just might sway us. The poll is at the bottom. Enjoy!

"And I'm Spent..." by Kimsama

"I don't know I think it's supposed to move" by Colander

Opposites Attract by Anonymous

Balloon Boy 2 by Anonymous

"If only they had read the contract they signed, Ivanka and Jared would have been spared the humiliation of being kicked off their own dance floor for 'sexual bending.'" by Kimsama

"Such a charming wedding tradition. Imagine, though, the poors have to do it with cake!" by Kimsama

Monster Mash by Foster Kamer*

*not actually eligible to win the cash

"It's subtle..." by Anonymous

Trump Soho by Anonymous

Bachelor Party by Anonymous

We asked for attendees of yesterday's nuptials to send us their own pics when we saw the New York Post's exclusive wedding portrait this morning. After we saw the photos pop up on the websites for People, Star and PopSugar, we started making calls to find out how they got the pics, too.

A phone chain commenced. First their wedding photographer Fred Marcus Photography wouldn't tell us anything beyond "No comment." Then Steve Rubenstein (who reps both Jared and the Post) told us to call Ivanka's rep Rona Graf who told us the wedding pics are free handouts and to call Getty, which is distributing the photos. Getty, though, said that we had to promise to only use the photos for a "positive story." (That is how you get headlines like People's "FIRST PHOTO: 'Beautiful and Smart' Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner.") This, Getty said, was on orders of a P.R. representing the couple (they wouldn't say who exactly) and since Gawker doesn't make ludicrous pledges, you'll have to go elsewhere to get your Kushner-Trump nuptial photographic fix.

So, we're starting a Gawker Contest*: We're offering $150 to the best Photoshop job on any of their handout wedding photos. Also, we'll pay the same prize to the person that sends us the best wedding photo that hasn't been released yet. Put your entries in the comments, or email us. The entire KushnerTrump clan anxiously awaits your work.

*Standard contest rules apply.

Congrats to the Miss America organizers for finding a celebrity judge precisely as revolting as Miss USA's Perez Hilton! Now you just need a stupid contestant to become a political martyr and your 2010 media strategy will be basically mapped out.

And, black contestants, don't get your hopes up.

A few observations: Cookie was a surprisingly popular guess. Proving that common sense sometimes trumps insidery media knowledge. Ditto for Conde collapsing its three bridal titles. Another popular guess was Men's Vogue, but since that folded a freaking year ago, it was not a winner.

And now your Conde Nast Death Pool winner: Commenter TheUptightMidwesterner!

Congratulations on your accurate death forecasting. Nick Denton will be glad to hear that he's not on the hook for breakfast. Email me and I will put you in touch with Pareene, and we will...work something out.

All you have to do is guess,

1. Which will be the next two Conde Nast titles to be eliminated? And,
2. When will they go?

Put your guesses in the comments. The person who gets the first question right wins; in the event of a tie, we'll go to the second question. As pessimists, we figure that Conde's budget cuts will force it to start folding its weaker mags, inevitably, over the next few months. If we're wrong, we're wrong. But we don't think it should take too long.

We haven't formalized the prize just yet, but rest assured that it will be something! In addition to being recognized as a media death genius here, on this website, I've been instructed to say that there's a "possibility" of maybe having breakfast with Nick Denton at Balthazar. If we can convince him. If not, maybe...breakfast with a lowlier Gawker Media employee! No matter what, it will be a prize to be treasured, as well as remembered. Put your guesses in the comments now!

Conde Nast employees especially encouraged to enter.

As you recall: "Rush Limbaugh with a chained Princess Leia (Sarah Palin) and Michael Steele as C3P0." Winning idea by commenter saythatscool, congratulations! Your prize is a feeling of artistic and cultural satisfaction.

At left you see the early stages of the Rush-as-Jabba-the-Hut painting in progress, which the intrepid artist went ahead and started even before voting had concluded. This vivid tableau narrowly edged out "Rahm Emanuel, riding either a white Siberian tiger or an oversized grey wolf, leaping across a mountain of giant pancakes." Coming in third, with 26% of the vote, was "Rachel Maddow riding a be-saddled Keith Olbermann into battle with a lance and pancake shield against a comparably-though-perhaps-differently-armored Limbaugh riding Hannity."


The good news is that Dan Lacey has vowed to paint all of your finalist suggestions. We'll keep you appraised. Below, an earlier (scrapped) version of the winning Rush painting, which was also nice:

[Dirty Secret: Dan Lacey has vowed on his blog to paint all of the ten finalists, just because. Pictured are two already in progress. Vote anyhow!]

Mr. Lacey has proven to be receptive to suggestions from us, which is how we got that 'Nick Denton With Pancakes' masterpiece. Now we're looking for the single best suggestion from you, the edumacated readers of Gawker. You all love politics, pancakes, paintings, and things that look like they may have been inspired by peyote. It's a natural.

Put your suggestions in the comments. We'll pick the best ones [Note: they do not necessarily have to be pancake-themed], then let you vote on them next week. Then we will tell Dan Lacey to bring the vision to life, and he will, if he feels like it! Actually he says he is "Happy to participate." The last time we ran this sort of poll we created the classic slur "Nilla." That is the level of historic-ness you're dealing with here, people. Submit your ideas now!
[And you can bid on that Michelle Obama painting here]

The New York Post's Page Six started the death watch at Allure and the New York Observer warned that this week may bring an end to "some of Condé’s B titles." But before Si Newhouse dons his grim reaper robe, we want to give you the chance to vote on which magazine you'd hate to see go. We chose to leave off powerhouse titles like Vogue, Vanity Fair, and scarily thin New Yorker as well as less glamorous golf and bridal groups.

Voting will continue through noon tomorrow—before, we hope, any horrible closures are announced. After that, because Gawker cares, we will buy 10 subscriptions to the winning title which we'll give away later to you, the public, at some point, somehow. If the magazine still exists.

Help save one of these threatened, glossy treasures!

The Candidates

Portfolio: Has already had cutbacks, and still seems to be hemorrhaging money.

Allure: P6 says they could be the next mag to get shuttered; Conde already has Glamour, Vogue, and Self to appeal to the same audience.

Wired: Has never been a huge moneymaker, and has been especially thin lately.

Teen Vogue: Just about every other teen extension of an existing magazine has already folded.

Details: Conde already has GQ, a superior magazine for the same crowd.

Cookie: Was one of the company's top ad page gainers last year, but it's still a startup, and would be a lot easier to fold than a more established title.

Gourmet: Was a big ad page loser last year. And does Conde need two food magazines?

Bon Appetit: Was a big ad page loser last year. And does Conde need two food magazines?

Conrad Black

1. Formerly a wealthy, elitist press baron, he was convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice for plundering his own company. Currently serving a 78-month prison sentence.

2. Uses jail time as an opportunity to portray himself as a wronged martyr. Finds hilarious ways to avoid calling himself a criminal.

3.Laughable lack of self-awareness: Believes he can be taken seriously as a critic of Wolff's book while avoiding the issue of his own complete lack of credibility, caused primarily by his own complete lack of contrition.

Michael Wolff

1. Though admirably willing to talk shit to power, the heavy-lidded media writer is also fascinated above all by himself, his interactions with media moguls and celebrity media types, and the keen insights that Michael Wolff can draw by examining the exploits of Michael Wolff.

2. Instantly and enthusiastically responds to any and all comments about himself from boldface names, as he thrives on being seen as a figure of concern to the media establishment. Although he strikes back with characteristic insidery bitchiness, he would paradoxically be distraught were people to stop talking about/ insulting him.

3. Laughable lack of self-awareness: He responds to Conrad Black's attacks on his book and its facts with an ad hominem blog post (that's our job!) that completely ignores Black's claims about his errors, in favor of the idea that Black is just trying to whitewash his own reputation online, because the web is full of "balderdash":

This is a new sort of Web journalism: dramatically discredited people reinvented as Web opinionists—Slate just hired Eliot Spitzer in this vein—who will work for free. (Tina Brown herself, dramatically discredited in her own way, is using the Web for a similar type of reinvention—though she, presumably, is not working for free.)

...Despite the fact that Wolff himself is a famously failed Internet entrepreneur whose thoroughly unnecessary new web venture, Newser, only gets press in relation to Wolff's various media feuds.

Tie?

[Facebook via Adrants]

1. Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman
2. Tom Green & Drew Barrymore
3. Halle Barry & David Justice
4. Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson
6. Angelina Jolie & Jonny Lee Mille

Send responses to contests@gawker.com and enter for a chance to win the Starter Wife Gift Bag (pictured below). Don't forget to check out The Starter Wife, premiering Friday night on the USA Network. Standard contest rules apply.

ABSURDISTBANKER: Last year, I built a fund that invested solely in a hedge fund, but it leveraged 2X to do it - so it was a leveraged vehicle to enhance returns on a leveraged equity long/short hedge fund
MOE:: oh god
a SINGLE hedge fund?
ABSURDISTBANKER: Yes
MOE: That is fucking nuts. Not even a "fund of funds." A fund of fund. A truly innovative investment strategy.
ABSURDISTBANKER: I remember saying to the product team that designed it
"People who buy this are insane"

Okay people, here is my attempt at an explanation: at some point everyone with money was all, "Wow. Buying regular stocks and bonds in a company is for suckers obviously, look at that stupid 'Internet' thing and you have to understand like seventy thousand different variables about all these companies. I just want my money to be safe. Putting my money in a hedge fund, now that is what genuine rich people I think are 'smart' do. Because I don't really want to be able to follow what is going on with my money, and the hedge funds won't tell me because I wouldn't understand anyway. But I'll feel good about it because only rich people get to invest in hedge funds, and we wouldn't be rich if we didn't make wise decisions about money."

And the hedge funds were all, "Yippee, money, and we get 1% of that upfront, but shit, how are we going to justify our colossal fees now that there are a trillion dollars of the market invested in hedge funds? Oh well, all these people want is for their money to safe so we will just make a few very safe bets infinitely more complicated because that is like 'adding value.' For instance even regular mortal rich people aren't allowed to buy fancy complex derivatives like credit default swaps unless they are very rich and incredibly pushy, and regular people are not allowed to borrow 50 times their net worth so they can make 50 times as much when their safe little trade yields a safe little return. Regular mortal people also can't usually 'short' stocks especially without buying them first so we will do that. You know, regular mortal rich people get a headache just thinking about all this crap, which is good, because if they thought about it long enough they would probably elect to never again pay a bunch of guys a 20% commission so a bunch of guys could borrow 5000% of their net worth to pay a few dozen guys making 1% commissions pooling together and splitting up and insuring and re-insuring thousands of 9% loans because, hello, that is just some Ponzi shit right there, just ask the last stupid rich person who invested in a 'FUND OF FUND.'"