Four Tips to add axe throwing into your Thanksgiving traditions.

HOLIDAY POST - HOLIDAY POST - GATHER ROUND ALL FOR A HOLIDAY POST!

In a not-at-all-surprising move, I've written a generic "get some cheap clicks" post about how you, dear reader, can bring some axe throwing fun into your awkward, overcooked, stressed-out holiday traditions!

Yes, Thanksgiving has become a minefield of conversation and appreciation, with the reason for the holiday being at best confusing and at worst a hotbed for conversations with relatives who want to apologize for what they're about to say, but then refuse to apologize after saying it.

But worry not - there is one surefire way to bring a bit more delight to your table, and to put a fine point on it, it's this:

Be more absurd and unsound than anyone else at Thanksgiving.

And do it with Axe Throwing culture and games.

So, assuming you're reading this whilst stressing out about how long your guest room will smell like sweat-pressed onions after your husband's sister's husband sleeps in it, or maybe while trying to do kitchen math around the amount of gravy everyone needs (pro-tip: you measure that with your heart), I'll offer up a healthy serving of tips and tricks to add some much-needed spice to your Thanksgiving day traditions.

Your first axerruption: bring your whole kit

Struggling with what to bring is a common Thanksgiving dinner problem. Rolls? Is that acceptable? Those Hawaiian ones everyone says they love but you inevitably go home with all but two and end up eating tiny tuna fish sandwiches for a week and a half? You know what I'm talking about.

Well, forget that. You know exactly what you're bringing: a repurposed rifle case full of axes, a battle vest and a whole mess of stickers to put on the kid's table.

Point in fact, make sure to fill that pre-dinner conversation by explaining your kit. Show off each axe. Talk about where you got every patch. Your overly-political-but-never-votes uncle will be on his back heel trying to figure out how to tie his pre-canned conversation about voting rights into your well-oiled monologue on axe-weight distribution.

Your second axerruption: grace

Listen: some people are actually good at saying grace. They account for the variances in faith backgrounds, they make it sweet but not too sweet. They make it sound unique but it could work in almost any situation.

However: that's rare. Most times, saying grace comes out a lot more like I sounded reading the Torah during my Bar Mitzvah: halting, confused, and altogether less inspiring than reading the back of a shampoo bottle.

This year, take the plunge and read your own grace before the meal. And by "grace" I of course mean reading the IATF subframe and target construction rules.

Watch as you disarm every single member of your family when explaining how far the sub-frame of an axe target should be 39 inches from the floor. Revel in the fear and confusion in their eyes when you reach the part about outer edge boards.

And yes, you should really offer some special oratory prowess when you get to the special note about using various wood types (flat boards, end-boards or stumps) in a legal IATF axe-throwing target.

If you do it right, you'll be dousing your dry-as-hell turkey with thick-as-pudding gravy before anyone else even ventures a peep about the political climate.

Your third axeruption: clutch practice

Thanksgiving is no excuse to skip out on practice. Fortunately, a plop of mash potatoes with a lake of gravy in the middle is just about the size of a clutch. You know where I'm going, baybeeeeeee.

You can use anything: single peas. Baby carrots. A drumstick if you have one (a note dear reader: I originally wrote "drumstick" as "drumpstick" and I like that so much better).

Every time the conversation lags, or you find you're getting bored of your cousin serving up his tight five comedy routine, go ahead and practice your hand-eye coordinate with whoever's plate is furthest from you. I recognize this isn't, like, a 1:1 for clutch practice, but hand eye coordination is always a good thing to hone in on. To help, consider these adjusted rules:

• Pea entirely in the gravy, not touching the mashed potatoes: 7 points

• Drumstick breaking the top and bottom of the gravy lake (in the taters): 7 points

• Pea on the mashed potatoes/drumpstick touching the mashed taters (not fixing it this time): 5 points

• Nobody notices you threw food on someone else's plate: 7 points

• The owner of the plate doesn't notice you threw food on their plate: 5 points

• You remain stone-faced when someone looks at you after throwing food: 3 extra points

Your forth axeruption: heckle family, tourney-style

This one, honestly, is probably the easiest to pull off, but is the most likely to stop people from engaging you in conversation: just become a little shit. When people clink their glass or drop a fork or drip some food onto the tablecloth, go ahead and heckle.

Download a sad trombone app. say "Eat again but better" (Oh, eat again but butter? is that anything?). Try to get the whole table to whoo for no discernible reason. Make them question whether you've finally lost the thin thread of sanity.

I think we, as axe throwers, don't realize how ding dang nonsensical our verbal culture is, if displayed outside of the axe venue. So give it a try. It's powerful stuff.

I hope these tips help you get through your Thanksgiving day plans, and maybe even makes them more enjoyable than ever before. From all of us here at Badger HQ, have a great holiday to everyone who enjoys it, and for everyone else: have a great Thursday this week.