Also funny are the employers who give out frozen turkeys they day before Thanksgiving...they won't thaw so you have to save them for Christmas.

Our church foodbank gives away all the fixings along with a coupon to get a turkey at the local grocery store.

I've been part of volunteer groups that have specifically been drafted to help cook and hand out these sort of holiday meat splurges - in Boston there was a good amount of warning and people would register their donations ahead of times so that we could make sure the turkeys get to shelters that can cook them and they didn't end up lying in a freezer because no one had the time to babysit them - or thrown out because a shelter over-estimated how much traffic they'd get. And, while a lot of time the safety of food that is consumed is questionable, shelters really don't want to hold onto meat beyond its shelf-life and end up giving everyone food poisoning.