Life in the Ville by Jimmy Del Ponte

Thanksgiving is a day where friends and relatives join together to give thanks. Like any other large gathering there are bound to be disagreements, funny episodes and unexpected circumstances.

I asked my Somerville friends to share their Thanksgiving horror stories, nightmares, mishaps or family feuds with us. Huge family gatherings are bound to fuel some heated conversations and situations, and here they are:

• Oh boy, it’s still vivid in my mind. Our family was sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner and my brother Mark and I decided to “pull the chair out from grandpa!” To this day I still see the top of grandpa’s head his glasses peering at me across the table! We laughed so hard for about 15 seconds!
• The first time I roasted chestnuts on Thanksgiving I didn’t score them. It sounded like WW3 in the oven – boom, boom, boom!
• Really cannot think of anything negative. Our mother made it very special and included people who needed a family meal that day.
• The funniest family Thanksgiving story of my family: one of my sister’s birthday falls on Thanksgiving every year. My grandmother always made her a homemade cake and grandmother was an awesome baker, but she also liked the tip a few back. One year while she was making the birthday cake, she tipped a few too many back and confused the flower with plaster of Paris. When she carried the cake out to the table after Thanksgiving dinner, we couldn’t get a knife through it. It was rock.
• When we were kids and lived on Church Street, the adults table was in the kitchen and the kids table was in a room off the kitchen. We all hated my aunt’s, stuffing but my mother made us eat it. So, one year my sister took the empty eggnog container and threw her stuffing in it. We all did the same. When the adults weren’t looking, my sister eased open the window and dropped the container which landed perfectly in the trash barrel in the driveway. We all giggled for the rest of the day and drove the adults crazy trying to figure out why.
• I walked into my aunt and uncle’s new house, hugged everyone, handed them my pie – all while wondering why I didn’t recognize anyone when it had only been a few years since I’d seen them. Eventually, someone introduced himself using his relationship to the host and we realized I was at the right house number on the wrong street. I took my pie and left.
• I was hosting my first Thanksgiving dinner, in my first apartment, on Hancock Street. I was very proud the whole family said yes. I should mention there were seven of us Grant kids, plus mom and her parents, and a few significant others. It was quite a group! I am just about ready to sit everyone down to eat, when I proceed to accidentally catch a dish towel on fire while removing the carrots from the stove. I burned the heck out of my fingers. Needless to say, I immediately had to leave to get to the Somerville Hospital ER. It is a nasty burn so I get in immediately, and the triage nurse said to me, “not one year goes by without at least two of you Grant kids coming into this ER laughing!” She gets me all bandaged up and says, “Please make sure you say hello and happy Thanksgiving to your mother from me.” Of course, they went to high school together. When I got home everyone said dinner was delicious!
• My first pumpkin pie. I looked around the table waiting for accolades and saw aunt Peggy making a sour face. I forgot to put the sugar in the pie.
• Large family (12) kids. No dishwasher. We put names in a hat and picked who would do all the dishes, pans etc. I got picked, like, four years in a row. Such lovely siblings to put only my name in that hat. I just continued doing it every year after. I will never be a hand model.

Thanksgiving is always a bittersweet time for me. My dad passed away on Thanksgiving Day 1994, so for me it’s a day to reflect and celebrate his life. I hope everybody has a wonderful and fulfilling Thanksgiving.