Thanksgiving Redux

I got up and went to the Turkey Bowl on Thanksgiving morning. I took my frisbee and cones in hopes of being able to play Ultimate Frisbee instead, and I had been assured there would be enough people there to play. It didn't really work out. Everybody showed up and decided they would rather play football first, then play Ultimate afterwards, which I knew translated to: "We'll play football now for two hours, then it will be too late and we'll be too tired to play Ultimate later." It wasn't worth my time to stick around waiting for that to happen, so I just gathered up my frisbee and my cones and came home.

I'm not really surprised. Many people said they'd like to play, and I know for a fact that many of the people who were there really like Ultimate, but there's just no way to compete with football on Thanksgiving morning. I was disappointed, but as I said, not really surprised. I could've joined the football game, too, but I decided my wife would prefer me home, and I didn't really want to play, anyway.

One nine-year-old little kid, the son of a big football fanatic, actually said that Ultimate was for wimps, or something like that. I kinda flew off the handle, and told everybody that Ultimate was a far more active sport than football, in which you spend 90% of the time standing around waiting for something to happen, and it requires a heck of a lot more effort to play Ultimate than it does to take 20 minutes to figure out where to throw the ball. Everybody quickly clammed up, and I think my point was well made. (Yeah, right. I'm realistic enough to know that the point received was: "This guy's crazy, don't say anything bad about Ultimate.")

Okay, I'm a little sore about the whole thing.

But the rest of the day was wonderful. My wife worked hard all day putting together an awesome meal. It was in keeping with our weight loss plan, and we didn't put on any weight as a result of it, yet it was a meal fit for a king. Everything was very tasty. We had turkey, rolls, stuffing, homemade (!) cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans. For dessert we had apple pie (we ate the pumpkin pie the night before!). Everything was homemade and absolutely delicious. We got out the new fancy dinnerware and the pretty goblets, and opened a bottle of Martinelli's grape juice (um, not homemade). It was a wonderful meal. My wife is simply awesome for doing what she did.

The rest of the day we just goofed off. We watched a bit of TV (including the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which the kids quickly grew bored with; and "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving"), played games, and just generally goofed off. It's been the best holiday we've had in a very long time -- no plans, nowhere to go, and nobody to entertain (not that we don't like doing that at times ... it just takes the pressure off not to). It was just me, my wife, and the kids, doing nothing and enjoying each others company. It was a great day!