turkey bowl survival

Thanksgiving is synonymous with thankfulness. For most red-blooded men, it also means football. Each year you should hold your annual "Turkey Bowl." If you aren't, you should start the tradition. A few years ago I read a post about family football rules. I decided to create my own list. Below are some general rules to help you maximize the greatness of the Turkey Bowl.

1. Get going early, or someone else is going to take your spot. Find a nice patch of grass and stay there. The Johnson's down the road will be showing up any minute.

2. Never play the game after dinner. Nobody wants to play football after Thanksgiving. Nobody wants to wear pants after Thanksgiving.

3. The following things are prohibited from Thanksgiving touch football: eye black, Mark Sanchez jerseys, tight jeans, cheerleaders. If you are at the field, you are on the team.

4. A Nerf ball is okay but you should own a leather football. A leather football is one of the things every home must have, like a dishwasher and a 49ers tribute wall. No footballs with wings, propellers, streamers or whistlers. That’s just dumb.

5. It's two-hand touch or flags. Unless you don’t have a good relationship with your family. Then it’s tackle.

6. No taunting, cursing or back-handed compliments. That's what Thanksgiving dinner is for.

7. Any out of town visitors that trip/fall and end up with a face full of mud is nothing to worry about. This is the highlight of dinner conversation.

8. It's okay to play with kids but don't baby them. Just because your 12-year-old nephew is about to score doesn’t mean you can’t tackle him. He’s got to learn how to take a hit sometime!

9. The count is five "Alligator." 4 syllables. Don’t use Mississippi. Or it will turn into a rushed "MISS-IPPI"

10. If you find yourself feeling the urge to do any Tebow-ing, Kaepernick-ing or Superman-ing, or any other “-ing” STOP. You don’t need it, and neither does anyone else.

11. No show-off football lingo. No screaming "red-7" or "hot route" You stopped playing in high school, and are a has-been. Don’t pretend you’re not. Not even the other team knows what you’re talking about.

12. There's always one guy who wants to draw out trick plays. Just let him talk, and then forget it immediately. Rule of thumb: Go Deep.

13. Don’t do the triple reverse running play. It never works.

14. No holding, pass interference or other stupid penalties. A little holding never hurt anyone. Don't be a wimp.

15. If you throw five interceptions in a row, you might be using the wrong hand, or you’ve been watching too many Giants football games.

16. Punting is not okay. It just isn’t. Pretend this is Madden.

17. Snow is nothing to be scared of. If anything, it enhances the fun. Again, don’t be a wimp.

18. No matter how good you think you are, you need to remember, Thanksgiving is about eating turkey, NOT scoring the winning touchdown. If you have to spend your Thanksgiving in the ER, you’re doing it wrong. Take it easy.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

skipping thankgiving

"It's the most wonderful time, of the year..." can be hear playing November 1st at 12:01 am in your local Walmart. By the end of the first week in November, most stores have their Christmas merchandise out for sale. Some get started before Halloween. It's almost like we are skipping Thanksgiving all together.

Some people might say 'big deal, Thanksgiving is lame, and it's only one day of celebration anyway' which is technically correct. It's the one day a year that you get together with relatives you don't like and pretend to like them as long as you can tolerate. You might have a yearly tradition of getting in a shouting match with your siblings. But let it be known, Thanksgiving is the holiday most synonymous with family fueds. Maybe because everyone is hungry from starving themselves all day. Maybe because the men don't lift a finger and resign to the couch to watch the Dallas Cowboys lose to the Lions again. But I digress.

What if we just skipped Thanksgiving altogether to have more Christmas season? Think about it...more shopping deals, more time to listen to Mariah Carey, the only time of the year you probably ever listen to her (or Michael Buble.) Light's can be put up while it's still relatively warm outside and there won't be snow on the roof? Sounds pretty great right? Wrong.

We need thanksgiving, because if we stopped, doom would befall us. Think about it; does anyone have a best friend who is never grateful? Never takes time to say "thank you" to you? Nope, you don't. Those people spend their Friday nights trying to find something to do but end up at a bar by themselves. Extending the Christmas shopping would be financial ruin for some. Adding another 25ish days a year dedicated to Christmas shopping would impoverish everyone except Target, Old Navy, Best Buy and WalMart. Could you really stand listening to straight Christmas music for 2 whole months? Hearing every possible version of 'Jingle Bells' known to man and then some? I tried this last year. It sucks. Plus how weird would it be to go from dressing up like monsters and sluts, to singing about brotherhood and Christ. We need a transition period. We need a short Christmas season to keep is special. Cue, Thanksgiving.

But Thanksgiving is being forgotten. Overlooked. I think the only reason we are keeping it around is to maintain our gluttony for food. We're too fat to let go of our feast, even tho most don't even acknoledge gratitude prior to stuffing their faces. Here's a solution:

Let's make some traditions to lead up to Thanksgiving. Make it the "Thanksgiving Season." After everyone is over Halloween and all the #latergrams have gone up of your costumes, lets start dressing up. Have pilgrim and Indian parties. Get Justin Timberlake to sing a "Thanksgiving Album" featuring Jay-Z, Florida Georgia Line and other big names singing about gratitude (Miley Cyrus will be banned of course). October and November is pumpkin everything anyway, let's make a drink specific to the thanksgiving season. Thanksgiving-nog. Something to rival Eggnog. Charles Shultz already made a Thanksgiving movie, I'm sure we could talk Robert Downy Jr and Catherine Zeta-Jones into doing another Thanksgiving movie. Heck, for the right price, Will Ferrell would do a "prequel" to Elf!

Making a whole 'season' around Thanksgiving will make us more grateful, and make Christmas that much more special. The Christmas season will be so much more exciting. When Black Friday rolls around, we can forget what we're thankful for so we can go buy more shiz we don't need with money we don't have.

Happy Thanksgiving!

playing games

Being a single adult who lives in Salt Lake, I don’t spend time often in Provo, but when I do, I almost always get stuck in a conversation circle where someone is talking about relationships and 99% of the time, the phrase “he/she likes to play games” is used.

What the hell does that even mean? I’ve never understood that saying. “Playing games.” Ever since Backstreet Boys came out with that song. Stupid backstreet boys! Why can't you be more like N*Sync?!

I like to play games! If it has a board, or some pieces or something to Jenga, I’m down. If it’s a sport game, I also will like it. But apparently these aren't the ‘games’ people are talking about. But when I ask, “what do you mean by games?” I always get this nebulous, indirect answer that doesn't really make sense. 

Maybe no one actually knows what games are. Maybe it's has something to do with the way you dress. Provo all-stars and backstreet boys have some eerily similar tastes in clothing. 

To me, from hearing this phrase from more than 100 people in my lifetime, this is the true definition of "playing games":

“well, I’m way more into them than they are into me. So they don’t reciprocate the same attention to me that I expect them to, and therefore, anything that doesn't demonstrate their absolute interest in me pisses me off and makes me tell everyone that they are jerks/sluts and they are always “playing games.”

Let’s find another way to express ourselves when we are let down by our crush not being as interested in us as we are in them. And Provo, can we talk about other stuff than your lack of relationship? Let’s talk about ANYTHING else. I’ll even talk about the WNBA. Get it together Provo.