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Merry Christmas!!!

Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas. According to the Library of Congress, this is the first known commercial Christmas card. It was the work of Henry Cole, a British civil servant, in 1843. That was same year that Charles Dickens published “A Christmas Carol.”  We are celebrating this year at our house in Virginia with our four children and, of course, Luna.

Last night, I made our traditional Cioppino soup — a tradition started by my late father, Jack Turley. It is a spicy mix of mussels, shrimp, sea bass, clams, crab meat, and other ingredients. I have previously written how I grew up hating the soup but the tradition fell to me when my father became ill. I am now as addicted to the soup as my father was. We gave a toast to my dad (who was also my best friend) as we enjoyed his favorite soup with warm bread. Leslie then made my favorite Old Fashion cocktail (with extra cherries!) and we watched a couple of old black-and-white Christmas movies with the kids. It was a great night.

Luna was the first up this morning and got excited when she spotted her Snoopy sock on the ottoman with the other packed Christmas stockings. She then stood guard awaiting the “all clear” to have at it.

It took some doing this year, but we finally found a great tree. Two of the boys decided that they wanted to put a paper Charlie Brownesque star on top of the tree rather than our usual star. While I was convinced that the entire tree was going to collapse as they stood on the couch, they finally succeeded in adding their curious addition in what goes done as a bona fide miracle of Christmas.

Tonight, my job is the the beef, gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and fresh grounded horseradish sauce while Leslie makes an assortment of our favorite side dishes for the dinner.  We also have a great Bûche de Noël (or yule log cake) for dessert.

The Turley family wishes everyone a happy and safe holiday. I will be toasting our blog family tonight and giving thanks for the wonderful community we have created at this site.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Turley

72 thoughts on “Merry Christmas!!!”

  1. Sounds lovely! So glad I stumbled upon your interesting and insightful blog earlier this year – Merry Christmas!

  2. Professor Turley,
    Thank you for the work that you do in bringing logical and balanced perspectives to the most controversial and interesting legal cases in this nation. I enjoy reading your columns and the stories you post on this site. You bring your heart of a teacher to your writings Merry Christmas to you and your family. I hope that you will have time to get some much needed rest.

  3. Merry Christmas to the Turley family and all the folks here. And I hope we get to read more from Maddie Turley in the new year.

  4. Merry Christmas to the Turley family, the regular posters here in the comments section!!

    Professor, dont suppose you would be willing to share the recipe for the soup, eh? 🙂

  6. Merry Christmas! You have become my guiding star in a turbulent time. Your fair and unbiased wisdom are much appreciated.

  9. Merry Christmas to you and your family and thank you very much for your chronicles.

  10. Sending special Christmas wishes to Ben and Jack. I was their middle school librarian and saw them frequently.
    I first asked Ben if he was related to Bob Turley and we used to talk about baseball.

  11. Just encase we have forgotten what this season is all about you have so kindly reminded us what it really means to share our stories with others.Thank you, Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2022.

  14. A very merry Christmas to you and yours, sir, and may we all have a much better new year.

  15. Dr. Turley — please stay as alert as ever and stand ‘on guard’ as is your passion, to be one of the hopefully growing number of ‘defenders’ of the ROW ( to us economists, that’s the Rest of the World). And I love the sound of your family cioppino and warm bread — nothing compares to superb warm bread….

    Thank you for all you’ve done and you do.

  16. Have a wonderful Christmas with all your family. You have become part of our day

  17. Merry Christmas to you and your family. I really enjoy reading your ‘take’ on so many issues at this insane time in our lives. Be well and keep up the good work. It is greatly appreciated by me and many others.

    Lynda Sposato
    taloolah@aol.com

  19. Merry Christmas to you and your family……Christmas is really a special time of the year as it is a family event that fosters memories that will last just like that Soup you learned to love because it reminds you of your Father as you go about making it.

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