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A look at some eclectic local Thanksgiving traditions
Illustration by Cindy Couling
The Alternative Thanksgiving
Turkey day doesn't always mean cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy
By Jessica Lyons
The rules that govern the typical Thanksgiving ritual are about as black and white as they come: Spend all day preparing the meal, watch parades and football games, and then eat too much and pass out in a food coma on the couch. Some people, however, develop their own traditions to spice up the holiday.
It seems much of Willow Glen enjoys a very merry Martha Stewart-style Thanksgiving. After combing the streets and overturning a few rocks, however, I found a few individuals who are planning alternative Thanksgivings. While most of San Jose is eating turkey and watching television, these families will stage their own football game, prepare for a wedding and indulge in desserts at Fire Station 6. One group of residents plans a feast of mealworms and crickets.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Don't Burn the Turkey: Station 6 firefighters (from left to right), Wody Drake, Joe Favorito and Ray Van de Star, look forward to neighbors bearing pies while they're on duty Thanksgiving Day.
Come Bearing Desserts
"Thanksgiving is like a normal day at work," says Station 6 firefighter Joe Favorito. "Except for it's a holiday, and you're celebrating it at work."
And cooking turkey and sweet potatoes and eating more desserts than they can name.
"We cook the turkey here, and the stuffing and candied yams," says firefighter Ray Van de Star, who also will work on Nov. 25. "And if families are coming down, they bring desserts."
So do the neighbors. The Willow Glen neighbors shower the station with desserts during the holiday season--one of the benefits of working at Station 6, firefighters say.
"With this neighborhood, I have a feeling we will have many dessert choices that day," Favorito says.
Both Van de Star and Favorito say they prefer pumpkin pie. But fire engineer Wody Drake says he's biased toward apple.
The five on-duty firefighters bring spouses, families and friends to dinner--sometimes, the dinner crowd reaches 14.
"If you're with a tight crew, in a way you're with your family," Favorito says. "We're like a family here working together, 24 hours a day."
And the firemen working the day after Thanksgiving reap the benefits, too. "The guys who work the next day get to eat leftovers all day," Favorito says.
Photograph by Chad Pilster
It'll Be Gravy: David Ginsborg and Elisa Koff's future in-laws will meet for the first time at Thanksgiving dinner, two days before the couple's wedding.
No Turkeys Here
David Ginsborg and Elisa Koff refuse to serve turkey at their wedding reception. Potatoes and pumpkin pie get the boot, too. The two Willow Glenites will tie the knot on Nov. 27. Two days earlier, over a traditional, 20-pound bird, stuffing and the works, their families will meet for the first time.
"We'll find out if we can all enjoy Thanksgiving together," Ginsborg says. "Kind of like the Indians and the pilgrims."
Koff, calm and collected for a bride-to-be, predicts the dinner will run as smooth as a good gravy. "It will probably be a little chaotic, with 20-plus people there, but it will go well," says Koff, 31. "We've both met each other's families, we get along with each other's siblings. I see this Thanksgiving as the start of a new family."
Ginsborg, 33, grew up in Orange County. Koff's family lives in Syracuse, N.Y., where the two will be married. And while Ginsborg and Koff have met each other's families, timing--and more than 3,000 miles--have kept the two families apart. Planning a wedding that would accommodate both families was a difficult task.
"Thanksgiving was the first weekend that would work with everyone's schedules," Ginsborg says.
The ceremony will be held inside the mail foyer at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Koff's father has taught there for more than 30 years, and Elisa and her mother both are Syracuse grads.
"The assistant dean tells stories about how he remembers Elisa riding her trike through the hallways--there's a lot of memories there," Ginsborg says. His rabbi from Orange County is going to fly out to perform the ceremony, adding a special touch from the Ginsborg side of the family.
There are only two rules for the festivities.
"We have prohibited any leftovers from being served at the reception," David says.
And Rule Two? "No turkeys allowed at our wedding."
Photograph courtesy of Lisa Thomas
Revels With a Cause: Thanksgiving with the Thomas family is a football affair.
Turkey Bowl
Instead of watching Thanksgiving Day bowl games, the Thomas family hosts a football match of its own. For the last 20 years, Lisa Thomas, daughter Stephane, son John and crew play flag football, aptly dubbed the Turkey Bowl. The stakes are high--the losers have to do dishes. With upwards of 30 dinner guests, that's no easy task.
"And I'm almost always on the losing team," says 25-year-old Stephane, who played in her first Turkey Bowl at age 11.
"It started out with one of my uncles, and the fact that we wanted to play football," she says. "My uncle had this ugly turkey platter that we used as a trophy. We have become more sophisticated, we have real flags now. We're always recruiting people. In fact, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?"
The big game starts about 1 p.m. at Ida Price School. The teams play regulation football, which allows for a half-time break. There's even an official referee. Sometimes.
"The refs are always cracking me up," Stephane says. "My grandpa Norm tends to be a biased ref, although I never know toward what team exactly."
Regulars include the Thomas family, uncles Alex and Tom, close friends and neighbors. The football teams come from all walks of life, "lawyers, doctors, college football players, neighbor brats, foreign-exchange students, filmmakers and newspaper folks," Lisa says. The teams number anywhere from seven to a dozen per team, and ages of players run the gamut, from 4- to 70-years old.
"It can get pretty competitive because no one wants to get stuck with the dishes," Lisa admits. Like any pro football team, they have had their share of injuries. "Pulled hamstrings. One year an 8-year-old girl broke her finger, I collided with another woman and we knocked each other out. Sometimes we play in the rain and people slip and hurt themselves that way, just the normal spills and chills of playing football."
The head-on knockout was caught on video tape.
After the game is over, everyone changes into proper dinner attire, and cocktails and appetizers are served. Lisa serves a sit-down turkey dinner. And every once in a while, the cook has to do dishes.
Photograph courtesy of Happy Hollow Zoo
Smashing Pumpkins: These lemurs get to play with their food before eating it.
A Beastly Feast
Zula, the pygmy hippo at Happy Hollow Zoo, gets to eat her Thanksgiving Day dinner before the other animals do. She's first in line at the zoo's annual Thanksgiving "Feast for the Beasts" event. On Nov. 25, kids and those young at heart, can watch all 150 animals enjoy raw fish, crickets, mealworms and other special treats.
"It doesn't matter if they are big or small," says zoo spokesperson Vanessa Rogier. "Everyone is included in the feast. Even the frogs get crickets."
But before the frogs are fed, Zula gets her grub. Zoo staff float a pumpkin filled with exotic fruit across the pygmy hippo's private pond toward Zula, who likes to sunbathe on the other side. Zula takes advantage of eating in the water, however, using the bottom of her pool to pin the larger pumpkin pieces down. She can hold her breath for extended periods of time, so eating underwater is not a problem for Zula.
Zoo-goers will also watch two fishing cats hunt and eat live fish, meerkats dine on hard-boiled eggs, mealworms, crickets and pomegranates, and a jaguar named Jezebel devour a pumpkin filled with trout.
Jezebel paws at the glass as I look at her through the window. Then she returns to a sunny spot in the cage. For Jezebel, half the fun of the feast is in playing with her food, Rogier says. "She demolishes the pumpkin. She throws it around and shreds it and eats it, and then later, she eats the fish."
Two black-and-white ruffed lemurs will celebrate their first Thanksgiving with Happy Hollow this year. The happy couple, Leo and Mahaly, in the zoo's "honeymoon suite" will sit down to a dinner of fruit, mashed potatoes, cooked yams and trail mix.
"But they don't know what to expect yet," Rogier says. Zoo staff, on the other hand, look forward to the event all year, Rogier says.
"It's our favorite event. It gives us a chance to slow down and connect with the animals, and it's also a great event for our guests."
The animals aren't complaining, either.
It's more than just a special treat, Rogier says. The feast challenges the animals. That means the fishing cats have to hunt for their food, monkeys must find mealworms and fruits hidden in pants pockets and tied-off pant legs, and meerkats have to crack the hard-boiled eggs themselves before they can eat them.
Even at the zoo, there's no such thing as a free lunch. The animals have to think before they can eat. Except for the five potbellied pigs that hang out in the center of the zoo.
"I'd say these guys eat their food the quickest," Rogier says. "Once they get to the food, there's not much left."
The Feast for the Beasts will take place Nov. 25 from 11 a.m .to 1 p.m. at Happy Hollow Zoo, 1300 Senter Road. Admission is $4.50 for patrons ages 2 to 64.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
