I declare!

With so many of us wanting to travel to distant cities for family holiday gatherings, many of us will be boarding airplanes to save the time of driving all the way to Kankakee.

And, judging from anecdotal evidence I garner from these pages, most people find it wise to show up to family gatherings with a big iron on their hips, and I'm not talking about a Black & Decker or Rowenta steamer.

However, although it might seem like a great idea to pack your shootin' iron inside the poultry you are packing to present to Aunt Pauline, security officers in South Florida caught some joker who had stuffed a chicken, not with bread cubes, but a loaded pistol.

It was like that Turducken on which John Madden traditionally feasted on Thanksgiving: a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. This was a gun inside a chicken inside a suitcase.

The people at the Transportation Security Administration, wits all, showed photos of the chicken gun with a punny caption on their Instagram.

 “We hate to beak it to you here, but stuffing a firearm in your holiday bird for travel is just a baste of time,” the post said in part.

So you can be prepared for your fun trip, the TSA reminds us all that fresh meat, seafood and other non-liquid food items are permitted in both carry-on and checked bags, but they have to be packed in ice. You can carry an unloaded firearm in a checked bag, but you have to declare it and pack it in a locked hard-sided container.

One of your cousins will give you bullets when you get there.