8. THE NEW BOYFRIEND/GIRLFRIEND THAT WON'T LAST

This person brought their boyfriend that they met three weeks ago when they were drunk. Now everyone has to pretend like she and he are in a serious relationship, even though when he tells someone he's originally from Tuscon his "girlfriend" responds with "really, I thought you were from Fresno...Huh." And since now there's someone at the table that no one knows, everybody has to pretend like they have manners are care about what's going on in other people's lives. This leads to everyone at the table focusing on the fact that this dude they've never met before, and will never see again, is "in ad sales right now, but looking to maybe starting a club promotion business or something like that."

7. THE PERSON WITH THE SECRET EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS


You'll know this person is coming to your thanksgiving about three and a half minutes before they get there, because your mother will pull you aside and say, "John is coming. Now, he's gay, but he hasn't come out to the family yet, so don't say anything about gay things. Everyone, did you hear that? John is coming and he's gay, but he hasn't come out yet!" Now, all anyone can think of when they look at John is "gay, gay, gay,gay" and because you don't want to bring any attention to the fact that he's got this secret, you end up bringing even more attention to it by striking up a conversation that is the direct opposite of it, which ends up awkwardly becoming about said secret.

6. THE FOOTBALL GUY

Football on Thanksgiving is a tradition, but your team is not. So when the entire room wants to change the channel because the Lions are losing by 42 points with six minutes left, it's super annoying when you respond with, "Wait, wait, I just have to see if Calvin Johnson gets fourteen more receiving yards." To make matters worse, this person insists on telling you the score to every game, and the picks they made early in the season that have or have not panned out, And if their team sucked, it is always because of injuries, or the team is young and in a rebuilding mode.

5. THE RELIGIOUS RELATIVE

It's fine if you love Jesus. No one is saying you can't. But you have to understand that for the rest of us, Thanksgiving is the only Holiday which is not based on the man upstairs. Therefore, I don't care that the shape of my mashed potatoes reminded you of a passage from Corinthians, I just want you to pass the salt. I may not know Jesus as well as you do, but if he's as cool as you say he is, then if he was invited over to somebody's house for dinner, he probably wouldn't spend the entire meal talking about how awesome he is.

4. THE HUNTER

Don't you just love the guy who, just at your second bite of over cooked dried out turkey with the lumpy gravy, has to describe in graphic detail, about the ten point deer he shot during hunting season. How he sat still for eight hours in twenty degree weather, shot the thing at 200 yards and then tracked it by following gut and blood trails through swamps, and bogs fighting off the wild hogs and scavengers to retrieve the body. He has to tell how he used his $800 rifle, with the $250 scope, sat in a $150 tree stand located on his $1200 a year leased land. How he spent $400 to mount the head for his "man room" plus $80 to process the meat, then brags on how much money he has saved in groceries because he has a freezer full of deer meat that ended up costing him $50 a pound.

3. THE OVERLY POLITICAL RELATIVE

You haven’t read the latest book by Ron Paul, and you have no idea what the trade deficit is, but that’s not going to stop the political freak from constantly quoting Ron Paul’s latest book about the trade deficit whenever there’s a two-second lull in the conversation. It doesn’t matter that your eyes glaze over like a ham when he starts spouting endless facts about civic policy and the economies of risk-management, he will not stop trying to get you to agree to a political stance that you have never heard of or couldn’t possibly care less about.

2. THE SUPER OLD GRANDPARENT

We should all have some respect for our elders, but trying to have a conversation with your 96-year-old great grandmother is like talking to a junkie who just shot up. There’s a lot of mumbling and nodding off and when there is some conversation, it’s mostly just a series of repetitive stories from your childhood.

1. THE RECOVERING ALCOHOLIC

We get it. You don’t drink anymore. But we don’t need updates every five minutes that you “haven’t touched the stuff in six years, 48 days and 15 hours.” And you know what? I’m not an alcoholic. Just because one sip of booze would turn you into a raging alcohol monster who would drain the liquor cabinet and then start chugging Aqua Velva doesn’t mean the rest of the world can’t have a glass of wine. But the worst part about this guy is that he has absolutely nothing else to talk about.