Recently, my last child, who is six, brought this home:

 

In case you don’t know what that is, it is a naked turkey that my son I am supposed to dress in a disguise so that he won’t be cooked for Thanksgiving. I cannot even explain it, but the first time I saw this craft on display at a local elementary school I was BLOWN AWAY by how AWESOME it was. The hallways were lined with turkeys hiding out as ballerinas, Santa Claus, Derek Jeter, Buzz Lightyear and Paddington Bear. I didn’t have anyone in elementary school at the time, and I was bummed because I had so many of my own AMAZING ideas.

Fast forward a few years and as luck would have it, my kids I have had the good fortune to disguise three turkeys thus far: one was a black belt we I made using an authentic $38 American Girl doll karate gi, one was Hercules (we named him Tercules, here is a photo:)

and I totally can’t remember the other one. This year, my son wanted to disguise his turkey as Marshawn Lynch, a super tough Seattle Seahawks running back known for his “Beast Mode” who loves Skittles almost as much as he loves football. In his eyes, my little guy is Marshawn Lynch just without all the arm tats and so naturally that is the only disguise he considered for his turkey.

Normally, I keep my competitive tendencies under control when it comes to crafts made by kids parents, but the turkey project brings out the worst in me. I ignore the laundry and the cooking and devote myself to researching, printing, and purchasing all kinds of things to help my son me win the turkey project which is technically not a contest but it might as well be. My oldest will be huffing and puffing all over the place because her favorite sweatshirt is still in the wash and there is no food in the house, but I won’t care because this is going to be the best turkey that school has ever seen–I can feel it in my bones!

I will start to assemble the turkey, relying a great deal on Google and my football-obsessed husband for the details and talking calmly but firmly whenever my son has the audacity to come up with his own ideas. Inevitably, I will suffer a crisis of confidence when we all start bickering and the reality of what we are assembling does not match our unattainable vision. I will start to get angry and not care at all what the turkey looks like, but then I will hear my son tell his own flag football O-line how they are going to love his turkey, and I will get sucked in all over again.

I am proud to announce that it took us only 6 days and $2.26 to create our Marshawn Lunch turkey this year, and I think you will agree that it simply kicks ass will do just fine. My son told me one of the girls in his class disguised her turkey as Elsa, so we were pretty much screwed from the get-go. Oh well. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, here he is: Marshawn Lynch as a turkey.

Gobble Gobble! Ready, Set, Hike!