10. Skip Bayless

Most of you know that of all the talking heads, Bayless is my least favorite. Skip is loud, annoying, biased and hates on Mahomes constantly. He also always refers to the Cowboys as “my Dallas Cowboys”. So why am I thankful for this idiot? Look we all make mistakes throughout the week. Forget to do something we were supposed to do, say something we shouldn’t have said, make a boss or a significant other upset with something we say or do. Whenever I am feeling low or stupid I can listen to him for 30 seconds and go man, at least I am not this moron. And not only that, this guy makes millions and millions of dollars so if he can be successful then so can I. Thanks Skip!

9. Streaming Companies

Have you really started to think about the fact that we can basically watch whatever we want, whenever we want, for very little costs. It is pretty amazing. Sure, I miss the nostalgia of going to Block Buster with my dad. But I don’t miss going to rent that brand new movie that I really wanted to see only to arrive and see 96 cases without one video behind the case. I love that I can watch any episode of Friday Night Lights without having to sort through DVDs. I love that I can start Lost with Walker. He currently gets upset because he has to wait a whole day before seeing the next episode. I had to wait a week and when they steal Walt off the boat I had to wait a whole year to see what happened. This generation will never know our pain. Anyway, streaming companies are great. All though there sure are a lot of them. I am glad they are all on automatic payments so I don’t have to pay attention to how much I am spending.

8. Christmas movies

Thanksgiving begins the process of watching as many Christmas movies as possible. We always kick it off with Home Alone because we often watched that on Thanksgiving in my family and we usually close it out on Christmas Eve with Christmas Vacation. In between you have Elf, the Santa Clause, Fred Claus, A Christmas Story, The Grinch, Home Alone 2, The Christmas Chronicles 1 and 2, Polar Express, Scrooged, Gremlins and more. And then at some point Danielle surprises me by turning on Die Hard and I surprise her by turning on Love Actually. (We also may or may not sneak in a viewing of Bad Santa). It is a great time as a family and takes away a lot of the decision making of what to watch for Movie night.

7. Getting Old

A lot of people don’t like getting old. And there are certain things I am not a fan of, for instance the fact that my knees don’t work anymore. But overall, getting old is pretty awesome. First of all, I avoid a lot of dumb stuff I used to do. Secondly, I do very little that I don’t want to do. I don’t need to impress anyone but my boss so outside of work if I am not feeling it, I am not doing it. And it is a great excuse to not do things. I’m too old to be out that late. I’m too old to go do that. As you get older you do what you want and say what you want. When an old person says something inappropriate or rude, we all say…ah, it’s okay they are just old. That’s the dream. Sometimes you see movies with a grumpy old man on a porch and he is always portrayed as someone who has issues. I think he has arrived.

6. Football

I love football. Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year because it involves my 3 favorite things. Food, family and football. I believe Football is the greatest game ever invented. I loved playing it. I loved coaching it and I love watching it. Some of my favorite memories involve football. Great memories from playing in high school and later coaching high school football as well. When I lived in St. Joe, we played flag football almost every weekend. It was a blast…although one time I did break my face. I kept playing which looking back was not a good decision. Pretty much if you are doing anything and you break your face, go to the hospital.

5. Thanksgiving meal

Some call it lunch, some call it dinner…who cares. It’s delicious. What’s not to love about this meal? I make a mean Turkey so I am pumped about that. But then you add in mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, usually some other random casseroles depending on who shows up and then you top it off with a delicious piece of Pumpkin Pie. Then you take a nap and then you eat it all again. Danielle’s favorite thing is Turkey Slop as she mixes it all together and warms it up. We actually got a second turkey this year to make after the meal so we could have more left overs. A genius move by my wife.

4. Fantasy Football

Fantasy Football is awesome. I am currently in 3 leagues. I am also currently in first place in all 3 leagues. This is abnormal but I am always competitive. My favorite league is my family league. It is a great way for us to communicate and keep in touch at least a little. My daughter, Savannah who was 9 at the time, won last year. Danielle’s sister’s family is especially entertaining as they all talk smack to each other. Her youngest niece responds to everything with “well…I have Tom Brady.” It’s a ton of fun. It also makes us pay attention to games that normally we wouldn’t care about. I watched most of the Bears vs Falcons game. I don’t particularly care about either team. But I had Fields and Kmet for the Bears and Patterson for the Falcons playing. That is the power of fantasy football…it gives me an excuse to watch more football. Also, as I mentioned earlier…I am winning. And winning is fun.

3. Patrick Mahomes

It may seem odd to some to have Patrick so high. But if my fellow Chiefs fans are honest with themselves, they would have him this high too. I have waited my whole life for the Chiefs to win something significant. I’ve been loyal, never jumping ship. All the winning is great. But we won before. But we lived in the world of “almost” and “should have”. We were the #1 seed at least twice. We suffered depressing playoff loss after depressing playoff loss. Andy Reid deserves a ton of credit as well as he took a disaster of a situation (we were 2-14 the year before and a player killed himself) and made us relevant again. In fact Andy has never had a losing record. Yet before Pat we only won 1 playoff game under Andy. It felt like Marty ball all over again. And then we drafted Patrick Mahomes. In my lifetime before Patrick was the starter, we were 4-15 in the playoffs. With Patrick we are 8-3. We have never not hosted the AFC Championship. We have only lost one playoff game in regulation. We won the first super bowl in my lifetime. We are never out of a game, even down 3 with 13 seconds to go. He has changed an entire fan base that assumed that things would go wrong and we would find a way to lose to a fan base now that assumes we will literally win every game and are disappointed whenever we don’t. It’s truly amazing. And oh yeah, he just turned 27. He’s the gift that keeps on giving.

2. Family and Friends

It starts with my amazing wife who puts up with my dad humor, constant watching of football, working long hours and all my other shenanigans. I have two kids that I actually like being around who are kind and can carry on conversations with adults and still think Dad is cool enough to hang around with. I have two exceptional siblings who I talk to and text with regularly. We aren’t just siblings. We do life together. I have two amazing parents that made and raised three mostly functional adults and are always there for us but also aren’t all up in our business either. And yes, I just wrote “up in our business.” Maybe I should start reading this aloud as I write.

I have a great extended family of nieces and nephews and cousins and uncles and aunts and was lucky enough to have 4 amazing Grandparents who have all passed. Not only that, I even like my wife’s family. Her sister and husband who live in Ohio are some of my best friends. Her family who lives close will all be joining us for Thanksgiving and I am legitimately looking forward to it because I like being around them. Not everyone can say that about their significant others family but I am grateful that I can.

And then I have had some of the greatest friends in the world. I have gotten to meet so many great people especially in St. Joseph and Jefferson City, MO. Some friends I talk to often and others I just see here and there or chat with on Facebook from time to time. But they are all special to me and I am grateful that each of them and the roles they played in my life. One of my favorite parts of this blog is that it has given me a reason to connect with former YL kids, leaders, high school friends and YL committee members. I miss you all but am so thankful for having you in my life.

And the number 1 thing I am thankful for….Jesus

Look I know many of you that are reading may have different views and overall this site was created to be funny and take a break from all the seriousness. But as I look at my life and look at all the people that are reading this…the one constant and the main connection point is Jesus. No matter what I have done good or bad I know that Jesus is my constant and because of my faith and my choice to follow Him, I have connected with all of you. So I am most thankful that I have Jesus in my life for all that I have been through, am going through and will go through. Enough said.

Happy Thanksgiving from Fifth-Down. Enjoy the best day of the year. I hope you all have a wonderful day with your families, watching football and eating delicious food.

-Jeff