Happy New Year to everyone on our blog! We rang in 2024 at home in Virginia after returning from Chicago for Christmas.  New Year’s Eve is also my wedding anniversary. Twenty-six years ago,  Leslie and I eloped in Old Town Alexandria after dating eight years. (We used my high school ring to seal the deal). Once again, we will celebrate two anniversary dates. I count the anniversary as our 34rd while Leslie insists on counting this year as our 26th anniversary.  (She takes a purely contractual calculation in going by the date on the marriage certificate while I apply a relational calculation). We toasted our anniversary and the New Year (as we did 26 years ago and every year since) with a bottle of Schramsburg Cremant.

Yesterday, we went with the kids to a wonderful Afghan restaurant for a change in our routine. Aracosia in McLean is amazing and they even surprised us with some celebratory Cardamom milk cake for our anniversary.

On New Year’s Day,  we will follow tradition and make the Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson Soup with wasabi Bloody Marys. My father, Jack Turley, first introduced the soup to our family in Chicago, which is a Mexican turkey soup. (He claimed that the spicy soup was the cure for any hangover).  We have made the soup every year for the roughly 50 years. I cooked the turkey last night that will go into the soup today.

I will be giving the summary of our year on the blog later, but I wanted to wish everyone a safe and joyous New Year in 2024. It has been another record year with our rapidly expanding community. I cannot thank you enough for contributing to our daily dialogue on issues great and small in our society.

This year is likely to be a stress test for not just each of us but our constitutional system as a whole. With the election, coming events will no doubt deepen the anger for many. However, the one New Year resolution that we can keep is to try to resist the rage and to respect each a bit more, even those who hold opposing views. There is truly more that binds us as citizens than divides us. While we can continue to debate issues from electoral disqualification to impeachment with passion, we should not forget that we are all part of a grand American experiment in self-governance. For all of our differences, we share a common article of faith in the Constitution that has never failed us in times of peril. It will do so again so long as we do not fail it.

So let’s have at it.

Happy New Year to everyone on our blog.