Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. We begin this day with the 50th Turley Turkey bowl with a couple dozen neighborhood kids and their families. It is an early game with copious amounts of hot chocolate, donuts, and treats. We then follow with my favorite meal of the year with roughly a large assemblage of friends and family. It is hard to imagine a better day (beyond the other Bears prevailing in a towering victory for Monsters of the Midway).
We are starting the day with the 50th annual Turley Turkey bowl. As always, it is the Bears against the Redskins. I am the coach of the Bears and John Rice is the coach of the Redskins. Since John is working abroad with the State Department, his son David will be stepping up as coach this year. The Bears continue to hold a long unbroken record (at least here in McLean), but Rice is an ever-creative coach and has threatened some new and devious plays. No one is currently on the injured player list for the Bears of Virginia and our players as usual will be hyped up on donuts and hot chocolate. Despite the cold and light snow, we will play on.
I am also making our traditional two Turkeys — one in the oven and one smoked on the grill. Both will have an apple-sausage-cornbread stuffing and Waldorf salad. We will have 25 and three dogs over for the dinner.
Now it is off to the gridiron and the annual appearance of the McLean Monsters of the Midway. I will update on the game for those of you who cannot see us on cable.
Until then, Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.
Update: The 50th Turley Turkey bowl was held and it was a blow out this year with the Bears winning 45-0. The score does not capture the spirited play of the Redskins, but then again (with the way that the other Bears are playing this year) we really really needed the win.
It sounds like it was an amazing Thanksgiving plus there was football!
Cheers!
I have not had Thanksgiving with family in several years – my folks live close to Nashville — my bro and sis are both in Vegas. And my husband never gets time off for us to travel during this season. So, we celebrate with dear friends locally who have taken us in like family. We were sharing memories yesterday which was great fun. The patriarch of the family is an Italian – “big Nick” – I use the term patriarch loosely cause really the women run the house. =) He is a 30 year Navy vet who has many entertaining tales to share of life on a sub. That reminded me of our Thanksgivings in Germany – Mom would go all out creating an amazing feast served on beautiful china and Dad would drive over to one of the local bases to pick up several GIs to treat them to a home cooked meal. Looking back now I realize how young these soldiers were – their first time in another country — and I remember how shy and sweet they were. And then there was one year when Mom had to return to the US as there was an unexpected family illness and we had nowhere to go. So, Dad took us to the Mess Hall at Flak Kaserne and it was actually the MOST memorable Thanksgiving for all of us. The food was actually excellent and we got to tour the immense kitchen and meet the soldier chefs, one of whom I became friends with years later when I met him at a club.