15 people share the most elaborate holiday pranks a family member pulled on them.

The holidays can be a lot of things. They can be a time to express love and gratitude, to cuddle up with family and friends and let them know how much you care. They can also be a time full of stress, petty fights, and a depressing focus on materialism and who has external markers of success. Last, but certainly not least, perhaps the best way to take advantage of the holidays is with loving trolling, pranks, and call-backs to inside jokes.In a popular Reddit post, user admiralnano shared a story of their mom's brutal Thanksgiving prank and urged others to share their family's holiday pranks.My mom played the best prank ever on Thanksgiving 10 years ago. Reddit, have any of your parents ever pranked you during the holidays?1. OP kicked off the thread with their mom's next level prank. When I was 10, my mother's family decided to come up from Guatemala and pretend to be Americans so they could "experience" Thanksgiving for shits and giggles. We had about 12 people to feed. When it came time to prepare the turkey I was ecstatic. My train of thought the entire time was "HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT!! I'M MAKING DINNER AND IT'S GONNA BE A-F*CKING-MAZING!! YEAH!!" After all was said and done, I go out to play with my friends and come back to the house at around 4:30-ish to start getting ready. I'm chilling in my room when my mom bursts through my door, screaming "ADMIRALNANO!! COME!! COME TO THE KITCHEN QUICK!! SOMETHING HAPPENED!! SOMETHING BAD!!" I panic. I knew, I just fucking knew something happened to the turkey. I yell at her "DID IT CATCH ON FIRE?! OH MY GOD!! IT CAUGHT ON FIRE!! DID IT CATCH ON FIRE!?!?! TELL MEEEEE!!!" We stop right at the entrance to the kitchen and my mom dramatically turns to me and whispers in a panicked voice "I....I...don't know what we're going to do. We don't have a backup plan." I push through her and open the oven. The foil covering the turkey is still over the dish hiding my nightmare. My mom steps next to me and lifts it with a pair of tongs unveiling a baked cornish hen. I screamed bloody murder. "WHAT THE HELL MOM?! IT WAS A 24 LB TURKEY WHEN WE SHOVED IT IN THERE!! WHAT HAPPENED?! OH MY GOD!! WE HAVE 10 OTHER PEOPLE TO FEED BESIDES YOU AND ME!!!! WE DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER FOOD TO OFFER!! THEY FLEW UP JUST FOR THIS!! OH MY GOD!! OH MY GOD!! THANKSGIVING IS CANCELLED!! WE'RE GONNA HAVE TO ORDER PIZZA OR SOMETHING!! WHY DID YOU LET THE TURKEY SHRINK?!!!?!" I'm bawling at this point, freaked out beyond belief that my "perfect" family Thanksgiving has just been cancelled. I turn away and start heading towards the balcony to tell our family when suddenly my mom grabs my arm and sinks to the floor in a hysterical fit of laughter. I looked at her puzzled, and followed her into the kitchen where she opened a bottom cupboard revealing the 24 lb animal cooked to perfection. She continued laughing for another 20 minutes while I just sat on the floor questioning my family's sanity and my own. To this day, I still don't know how she didn't break character and crack up. Tl;DR: My mom swapped our Thanksgiving turkey with a cornish hen nearly giving my 10-year old self a heart attack, for shits and giggles. BONUS: I got both drumsticks that year. So what fucked up/awesome holiday pranks did your parents pull on you? 2. Dickfore's parents tricked them good. My parents gave me socks for Christmas when I was little. I was supremely upset, but I knew they'd discipline me hardcore if I complained, so I accepted it and pretended to be grateful. I started to begrudgingly check out my bland new socks out when a 50 popped out of them, and they started laughing their asses off while I looked at the bill dumbfounded. I'm 23 now, and they're still fantastic. :D 3. Crotalus scared their mom good. When I was a kid, we went to a farm for Thanksgiving and they slaughtered our turkey. They cut the feet off, and I took them and put them inside my sweater, and grab them as if they were my hands. I was small enough that the ratio was such that it could have looked like I really did have scaly reptilian hands. My mom was laying on the couch taking a nap so I went up to her quietly, and touched her cheek with one of my new hands. When she started to stir I started screaming "IM CHANGING! IM CHANGING! IT HURTS SO BAD!!!" She freaked the fuck out and started screaming like crazy. She tried to back up against the back of the couch and went over the edge of it and it took several members of my family to calm her down. Still, nobody took my new hands away. 4. PagingDoctorLove's mom was next level on St. Patty's day. Man... I don't know if this is a prank so much as a mystery. So when I was little my mom would go all out for holidays in very creative ways. Every holiday "deity" was on par with Santa, complete with elaborate back-stories and explanations for every inconsistency (although to be fair the explanation was usually "magic!") For example.... On Easter we each got a basket filled with treats, but had to go through elaborate treasure hunts to get them. My mom would write hints on notecards, which led us all throughout the house, the yard, maybe even the whole neighborhood. (we later realized she would hide the baskets while we were out of the house and well into our hunt, in order to guarantee that we wouldn't accidentally find them before going through all the hints.) Also-- in order to back up the story that the Easter Bunny was somehow able to fit through the mail slot to deliver said goodies-- she bought a giant rubber rabbit foot stamp and made chocolate f*cking paw prints all over the door, walls, etc. That's commitment, people. But I digress. Every year on St. Patrick's day, my mom dyed everything green. Green milk, green pancakes, GREEN! She said that we had to do this because the impish leprechauns would be out and about causing mayhem all day, and the only way to catch their speedy little asses was to bait them with their favorite color. We'd set traps with a dish of food set under a shoebox, propped on a string, and our gullible butts parked around the corner waiting for the telltale "flash of sparkly green" (Because leprechauns are apparently too fast to see with the naked eye. Also very small.) My parents would sit and watch our shenanigans, no doubt holding back their hysterical laughter. So here's the thing. While we were waiting for the leprechauns to take the bait, there would inevitably be a loud clatter somewhere else in the house. When we ran to see what the noise was, there would be a bunch of chocolate wrapped gold coins all over the floor. We lived in a very large, old and noisy house, so that we could easily hear this happening from a floor up or down. Keep in mind that every single member of our household was present and accounted for at the leprechaun baiting. The places where the coins fell were too far from us for my mother to have simply tossed them over our heads while we were distracted. They also often fell in very stark, empty areas of the house where hidden stashes of coins or other complicated methods of coin dispersal were impossible to hide. The go-to spot seemed to be our upstairs hallway, which had all hardwood floors, sparse track lighting, absolutely no furniture, and only one entry point... which my mother would have had to pass us to use. As we grew older, we grew more suspicious. We started to investigate our mother, all year long. Middle of August? Let's go figure out where the fuck mom is hiding her method of chocolate coin dispersal. These witch-hunts caused some unfortunate and untimely discoveries... like all of our baby teeth stashed in mom's nightstand (no more tooth fairy, womp womp). We also solved the riddle of the missing Victoria's Secret catalogs... thanks for the mental image, dad. But we never figured out how the hell my mom managed to be two places at once, every St. Patrick's day. We're all in our 20's and 30's and she still refuses to tell us how she did it. 5. whirlygirl9 still misses the little bird. When I was very little, my dad would talk in a high pitched voice when I wasn't looking. The voice told me he was a little bird and he was my friend. We would talk all the time and I would beg him to come out from where he was hiding and visit me. It started on a very long road trip to visit my grandparents and he continued to do it once we got home. One day I was looking under all the furniture trying to find the little bird while we talked and I spun around suddenly and caught him in mid-sentence. It was kind of devastating. 6. KinotoUpInDisBeeotch's mom knew how to bait-and-switch. Every Christmas, my brother and I would visually inspect the gifts under the tree to see what belongs to who and to guess what they could be (since we weren't allowed to touch/rearrange them). One year, there was a big box all the way in the back that didn't have a name on it, so we asked our mom who it was for. She said "It's for your dad. It's a ##-piece gift set for men; you know, with a wallet and a flask and stuff." We thought it was a pretty cool idea, and we let it go. Tune in to Christmas morning, we hand him the box excitedly, waiting to see his reaction to this gift. He goes to start opening it, then says "Hey, why don't you guys help me open it?" shrug Sweet, more wrapping paper to shred. Paper comes off... aaaand it's a Playstation 2. We lost our minds for a good minute or so, before we turned on our mom (with a video camera in hand) and start hysterically screaming "YOU LIED! YOU LIED TO US! YOU'RE A LIAR!" She thought it was hilarious. And it was. We were beyond ecstatic. Favorite part is watching that tape years later and hearing our childish, squeaky voices. :) 7. gigabrain got to go to Space Camp. Not a holiday prank, but still awesome. After my Bar Mitzvah my family all gathered at my grandparents house and gave me gifts then. It started with the usual, cards with checks, clothes, gift cards...and then I get a box with no name on it. So I unwrap the box, and inside is a book about stars and planets. I'm confused, so my grandmother asks if I want to trade what's in that box for another wrapped package. So not quite knowing what's going on I agree. This one is a little model of a space shuttle. Cue same quizzical look, followed by an offer to trade for a slightly larger box. I trade up to a tshirt and hat that have the NASA logo on them. This routine continues until I've traded up to a check for 500 dollars, and have added a blank plane ticket, a water bottle, and a pair of aviator sunglasses as well. The entire time that I've been opening boxes, my father and uncles are nowhere to be found, and the whole family is acting like the audience at a taping of The Price is Right. So finally my dad and uncles walk into the room wearing identical plain grey sweatshirts and holding one last package..it looks like a picture in a frame. One final time they ask me if I want to trade for what they have, or keep everything else I've already opened. Half of the people in the room are yelling to keep what I've got, the other half are saying to open it. I bite the bullet and take the wrapped frame. As I open it, Dad and my uncles all spin around and start taking off their sweatshirts. I'm confused again, so I look down at the picture. It's not a picture...It's a certificate good for a session at Space Camp in Huntsville the following summer. I look up and they're all standing there wearing Space Camp t-shirts with giant grins on their faces. I'm sitting there in absolute shock before it hits me...IM GOING TO FREAKING SPACE CAMP!!!!!!! I lost it. I was laughing, crying, happy, overwhelmed…I’d talked about wanting to go to Space Camp since I was about 6 years old. They all got together and made it happen. Even 11 years later I remember the feeling of pure joy when I saw that certificate, and that 2 weeks in Huntsville the following summer were absolutely amazing. 8. nighthawk715's mom had a strange way of celebrating their birthday. I don't know if this counts as a prank, but for my 6th birthday my mom chased me around the house with a live lobster... to this day I fear most arthropods... 9. Diredoe's parents cooked up a brilliant plan. This happened around the year I was born, actually, but it's a famous little joke my parents played that was talked about in my family for years. Anyway, my older brothers really wanted an NES. It was the only thing they wanted for Christmas, but my family was pretty poor and my parents told them over and over that it wasn't likely they'd get it, but their little hearts just refused to give up hope. Christmas day they open their presents and... nope. No NES. My one brother was upset the most - he'd been the one most vehement about getting the system, but he was trying to be happy with what he got. After a couple hours my parents told him to scrub out the oven so they could get the ham going, and my brother was pissed. Come on, having to do stuff? On Christmas? Can't they just cook it in the oven as it is? My dad basically said to shut up and do what he was told. So my brother glumly went over to the oven and opened it up... and there was the Nintendo, with a couple games. He was ecstatic. He couldn't play it until after he scrubbed the godd*mn oven, though. 10. sexponentialgrowth's dad is a brilliant troll. There was a HUGE box under the Christmas tree one year. My sister and I were so anxious to open it. Our parents finally wake up and we're crawling around the tree and sizing up presents like lions chasing after gazelles. My father says "wait, don't open anything! I have to go to the bathroom real quick!" We're sitting there patiently, waiting for the sound of him washing his hands so we know game time is upon us... what's taking so long? We hear the sound of him brushing his teeth. Maaaaan! OK, fine. He'll be done soon, right? We hear the water running again in the sink. NOW he's done! Yes! NO! The water shuts off and then we hear the water in the tub running. He runs a shower, taking his sweet time... I'd say he delayed our Christmas present opening by about 30-minutes with that morning routine, but when you're younger it feels like hours. We were seriously trolled that morning, but the Sega Genesis and Sonic we got made up for it. 11. MrFreeman's cousins gave an excellent troll gift. Not really related, but the best prank I know of... At a wedding there is usually a table where all the guests put their gifts. My cousin and his wife were invited to a wedding. They took along a nice gift. Wrapped in gift wrap with a card attached. They also wrapped a cabbage in nice gift wrap, but it had no card. They walked in to the reception each carrying a gift and left the two gifts on the table. It's now many years later and I don't think they have ever confessed that they were the ones that gave them the cabbage 12. BrooklynNets's uncle almost caused a Christmas riot. I was pretty excited to experience Christmas when I first moved to England, and in the weeks leading up to it I asked my family various questions about the food and customs and so on. About a week before the big day my uncle casually mentioned that, due to government budget cutbacks, John Major (the British Prime Minister at the time) had cancelled Christmas that year. I bought the whole thing, and the next day at school I gravely informed my friends that the economic downturn had knocked Christmas off the schedule, and that the lights in our town centre were only staying up because there was no budget for contractors to remove them. It set off a minor riot in the classroom which was only quelled when my teacher informed us that my uncle was probably pulling a prank on me. 13. PresidentWhitmore's dad pranked his brother right back. Two Thanksgivings ago, my dad got an alert on his iPhone that said "Congratulations: You have been selected to beta test the new iPhone 5. Check your AppleID email address for more information." Probably a scam, right? But when he checked his email, lo and behold, he had an email in his inbox from Apple with details about when and how to pick up the phone from the local Apple Store. My little brother has always been the family tech guy. The alert and the email were both part of a prank he was trying to play to make my dad look like a fool in front of a crowded Apple store on Black Friday. My brother is technically savvy enough that everything from the alert (sent from the FindMyPhone app) and the email (a doctored version of an old iTunes receipt email with some fancy concept art added in) looked relatively believable. He even included a doctored Gizmodo post that "verified" rumors of an iPhone 5 beta test. But he failed to account for the fact that my dad had a lifetime of pranking experience under his belt. My dad played the role of the fool expertly. He obnoxiously bragged about how he was going to get the iPhone 5 before anybody else all throughout Thanksgiving dinner. About how he was going to be a beta tester while my brother, a loyal Apple enthusiast, wasn't going to get shit. About how it couldn't be a scam because the Gizmodo post verified it. That night, he "called" Apple support to verify that he could pick up the phone in person the next day. And by called, I mean dialed and then clicked Cancel before holding the phone up to his ear. His acting throughout the entire "conversation" was worthy of a Tony. He yelled for my brother. "Quick! Come here! You won't believe what's happening. It turns out the iPhone thing is a scam. I'm on hold with Apple right now. They're transferring me to their legal department. They said that they want to investigate and bring suit against the scammer." My brother is getting noticeably flustered. "DAD, DON'T GIVE THEM ANYTHING!' Meanwhile, my dad continues his performance. "Yes sir. No sir. Yes sir, I can send you all the information I have. No sir, it's a family computer. Yes, other people might have access to it. Sure. Sure. Yes, my sons are in town. Uh huh." My 21 year old brother is turning red. He's on the verge of tears. "DAD STOP STOP DAD STOP HANG UP THE PHONE!" "Thanks you very much. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you catch this guy." My dad turns to my brother. "I just sent Apple the email. It's in their hands now." My brother freaks out until my dad is able to calm him down enough to tell him it was a joke. And that's why you don't prank your parents. 14. WildVariety's uncle went the extra mile to be extra. Wasn't a parent, but my Uncle. Christmas day some year in the 90s. We had a rule that I couldn't wake my mum before 7am to open presents etc. One year, my uncle put all the clocks forward 3 hours. I woke up super early, as usual, see it's 7am, wake up my uncle first, who had been out clubbing the night before and had returned with a few whistles. I tried to wake her, she refused to get up, said it was too early. Cue 20minutes of me and my uncle running around blowing whistles and shouting wildly. It was glorious. 15. ThatOneJewYouNo's stepmom got pranked by reality. I've got a prank story, but it didn't exactly turn out in full giggles like it should have. I still thought it was humorous though. It was Christmas time two years ago, and my father and my step-mother were preparing a relatively big meal for about seven or eight people. My dad works fifty plus hours a week, and I heavily attend school and work on the side, so both of us are pretty tired, but happy to be relaxing during the break. My step-mother steps out and tells my father that the ham will be done cooking in about an hour, and she should be home somewhere around then, but to take it out if she doesn't get home in time. I can see the wheels in my father's head spinning. He lets the ham cook, and then proceeds to take the ham and hide it out in the dining room, leaving the oven on to pretend it's still cooking. My dad proceeds to pretend to be asleep on the couch as my step-mother gets home and she goes and tries to take the ham out. Needless to say she started freaking out, yelling, "Jeff! Where on Earth is the ham?! Did you take it out?!" and such. After a couple of seconds of silent giggling he "wakes up" and walks her to the dining room to show her the ham... ... That the dog had been chomping on for about ten minutes. That ham was completely chewed up/eaten by our American Fox Hound. We went and had Chinese food for Christmas dinner instead.