Tomorrow, in the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving. People invite family and friends over to gorge –excuse me–eat a large amount of food and give thanks for all their blessings. But as we know this is the sanitized version of what can happen in most homes where you may invite someone you hate all year and have to like for one day or more, deal with possible drunkenness, sibling rivalry, parental tension etc…or perhaps that’s just me.

If you’re ever stuck for story ideas, the holidays are ripe with them. Take any incident and give it a twist. Author Diane Chamberlain gives a wonderful example of this in her great blog Inside the Mind of a Fiction Writer.

So don’t think you’re strange if you suddenly come up with:

An idea of finding something strange in the turkey.

Reasons why your sister isn’t behaving like her usual self.

Or why Uncle Will isn’t drinking as much as he did last year and why Aunt Margaret has started.

Challenge yourself. What holiday stories can you come up with?