Baby Yoda Thanksgiving Parade Ballon

Baby Yoda Crushes it as Thanksgiving Balloon:

(There wasn’t one in the parade as far as I know...but certainly it is only a matter of time before the internet demands representation.)

To be completely honest, we did not even watch the broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV. Our kids have always been rather uninterested in this New York tradition. 

However, it was really, really windy this morning, so I did spend a good bit of time reading online about the various giant character balloon accidents that have happened over the many decades of the parade’s history.  While there was only one incident serious enough to put someone into a coma- the Cat In The Hat was the offender- there have been many more mishaps that resulted in damage to streetlights, lost bystander teeth, damaged character dignity, and general panic and distress. 

The parade proceeded today despite the winds, but I heard that they held the balloons very close to the ground, practically on top of their armies of handlers. 

Certainly Baby Yoda would never hurt the rope holders or specatators, would he?

Late and very hurried napkin, (had to spend much of the day making the whole kitchen sticky with sweet potatoes) but Happy Thanksgiving  nonetheless!

And, last but certainly not least, our younger son deserves the concept credit- I was just going to draw baby Yoda riding a wild turkey....much less appropriate!

Turkey Train

Happy Turkey Day:

I can’t really explain this one. We spend a lot of time on the subway, and this one man’s bright orange sweatshirt hood just seemed like it needed a wild turkey head. 

Thanksgiving Kaiju's Revenge

Happy Turkey Day?

No turkey at our house today, much to our kids' disappointment. 

Their father, as he would say, "has not intentionally consumed poultry" in decades. Usually my mother is in charge of providing the turkey, my father in charge of carving.  They are not with us his week, although my mother thoughtfully served a bird at their last visit.

Three years ago, my parents stayed away during thanksgiving because the kids had the flu. My mom had ordered a smoked turkey which arrived despite her absence. By the time the actual turkey day arrived, the kids were better but had passed the flu to their father and he was too sick to venture out of the bedroom. 

I did my best to carve the smoked turkey for the kids, discovering that it was a lot more challenging than I had ever imagined. After they had watched me crack open the vacuum packed bird and incompetently chase the slippery carcass around on the kitchen counter, hacking at it, they announced that they would not be eating any turkey.

The point of the story, I suppose, is that I did not cook a turkey for my sons this year. They did recover fairly quickly from their horror at the incompetent smoked turkey carving experience, and are now happy to eat turkey. I'm just not up to it. 

But I do enjoy drawing turkeys.

Thanksgiving Retribution

Thanksgiving dinner strikes back...with squirt guns.

The napkin recipients' father hasn't eaten red meat or poultry since his childhood, so we usually have a salmon on Thanksgiving. My mom has contributed a turkey for those who are not philosophically opposed to the eating of poultry.

The original concept was thanksgivIng dinner items holding machine guns. Given recent world events, I tried to recast the machine guns as squirt guns. There is such a real world item- a clear plastic machine gun shaped squirt gun called the "Saturator." 

Star Wars Thanksgiving

"Only at the end do you realize the power of the Dark Meat"

Clearly grasping for a Thanksgiving theme this year...
The boys wanted to know why does Kylo Ren Turkey seem more fluffy than Dark Vader Turkey?
And why do they not have their light sabers?

Alas, I did my best. 

Turkor the Ungrateful From Terraria

We've gone a few days without a Terraria boss napkin, so we were overdue.

Ansel was a bit suspicious of this drawing when he saw it this morning before school.  His endlessly-informed-about-all-video-games older brother reassured him that, yes, Turkor really does have a cooked turkey body, and really does, Hydra-like, sprout extra heads. 

I had seen a video clip on Youtube last night that featured two heads.  If I had know that there could be more, I definitely would have included them.  I am always pleased when I get a chance to draw a wild turkey head.

Here is a link to the Turkor page on the Terraria Wiki if you still doubt that this could possibly be a character:

From Halloween to Christmas

Ansel's napkins from the fall holiday season, more or less.
Certain themes stand out: Rocket Raccoon and the Guardians of the Galaxy, Sea Otters, Ewoks and Star Wars.

Thanksgiving Threesome

Not one of my better efforts in the canines in costumes genre, but it was trying to be a slightly less disturbing rendition of the Regular Show's three costumed Thanksgiving thugs. They steal the last frozen turkey and explode a car during a high speed chase.

These dogs just look like they are having a tiresome day.

Sea Otter Pup Rides a Wild Turkey

(I was mistaken yesterday, and there was in fact one more napkin-requiring school lunch this week before fall break.)

My younger son  told me last night that not one person in his class thought yesterday's "Turkeysaurus Rex" napkin was funny, and that everyone said it was just weird.  He did agree nonetheless that maybe we could try something else on the turkey theme...as long as there was also a Sea Otter involved. 

I am always happy to draw something at least tangentially related to actual curriculum rather than trademarked characters that suggest that my kids watch too much television.  I don't, however,  get requests for school subject matter very often. In my younger son's case, I have to reach back to 2012, when he was studying Owls to come up with a series of school related napkins. (see the poorly photographed Owl napkins here)

Annoying mother that I am, I still frequently suggest school related napkins.  My kids' teachers always make a point to give me lots of positive reinforcement when my son shows up with a napkin that is about an edifying school topic. I am perhaps more responsive than my sons to praise from school authority figures.

Early on in the napkin project, my older son's Pre-K teacher took a hard line.  She told us that she was not going to read the text to him on any napkin unless the image was related to curriculum or at least portraying some other wholesome topic like real animals or plants: No Star Wars characters, even if Luke and Darth Vader were hugging and proclaiming the virtues of Quaker non violent conflict resolution.   This restriction of course only increased my son's determination that the napkins should havenothing to do with school. As it turned out, he was surreptitiously reading to himself, so he did not need her help with the text anyway. 

Our younger child's teachers have been a bit more relaxed, and perhaps, as a result, he is less of a pop culture crusader

I had to go with a baby Otter for today's image, since it seemed too improbable to put a 70 pound, four foot tall adult animal on the back of a Turkey....unlike a pup, which is completely plausible astride a Wild Turkey....

(There is a now famous rescued Sea Otter Pup at the Shed Aquarium in Chicago which can be seen at great length online.  for instance:Sea Otter pup 681)

Turkeysaurus Rex with Pilgrim for Thanksgiving

It's an appallingly short school week because of "Fall Break."  At our kids' progressive Quaker school, we do not refer to the holiday as "Thanksgiving" in the same spirit as we use "Indigenous Peoples' Day" in place of "Columbus Day."  Since today is the single full day of school before this unnamed day of eating that overlooks the oppression of many people and fowl, it was the only option for a themed napkin to go to school.

As I am often reminded by my sons that birds in general, and chickens in particular, are modern day dinosaurs, I thought a giant Wild Turkey/ Tyrannosaurus Rex mash-up might be in order.  There have been a great many videos posted online of "wild turkey attacks" (here's a link to a very recent Washington Post article entitled "Great Moments in Wild Turkey Attacks" in case you doubt my expertise on this topic) So it seems that Wild Turkeys might in fact have the disposition of a large predator when given the opportunity. 

My sons agreed that it seemed appropriate that the Turkey have the upper hand at least for today.

A few other Thanksgiving themed napkins from years past can be seen at this link.

The Menorah Turkey Says Happy Thanksgivukkah

Happy Thanksgivukkah from the menorah turkey. This one did not go to school today as everyone is at home languishing with the flu...perhaps he can take it in the year 79,811 when the two holidays coincide again.

Minecraft Thanksgiving

Ansel requested a napkin featuring the Minecraft skins of Grim Reaper and Iron Golem, and I was apparently seized by an irrational desire to get started on the topic of Thanksgiving.

Archer came home early today with a fever and was able to give me a lengthy critique based on the snapshot of the napkin on my phone.  He offered extensive commentary regarding which Minecraft skins I should have included rather than the ones I thoughtlessly drew on this napkin..."Mom! BurittoBrine, really? When you know how much I like Herobrine?"

He also questioned my overall composition.  He was only slightly mollified when I showed him the original source in Norman Rockwell's painting:  ("Freedom to play too much Minecraft"...?)

Reggie From "Free Birds" with Pizza Steve from "Uncle Grandpa"

"Hang on to your nuggets"... and to your dairy, and your gluten:  Thanksgiving food that talks back.

We saw "Free Birds" over the weekend during a ten year old's birthday party.  The movie's other tagline posits itself as "The best turkey movie of all time."  This may be true.  Perhaps it would be wise to leave it at that.

I will observe, however, that it reminded me strongly of "Chicken Little" a widely panned 2005 Disney movie that was the object of obsession for our older son for much of the period between his third and fourth years.  Something about the talking birds, wimpy underdog protagonist and invisible flying ship catapulted me back to our repeated, stupifying viewings of "Chicken Little."  That said,  "Chicken Little" features one of my favorite animated characters of all time: Fish Out of Water ....and "Free Birds" does not have that redeeming feature.

At any rate, "Free Birds" posits pizza as the solution to the problem of the Thanksgiving driven murder of turkeys.  While my children are happy to embrace an exclusively dairy and gluten based diet whenever possible, Uncle Grandpa's Pizza Steve presents a further food empathy challenge.