Although many families have gathered this week for the Thanksgiving holiday, the Marstons have been celebrating a different holiday.
"It's not Thanksgiving," said Mickelle Marston Wyatt. "It's Utah-BYU week. The holiday gets shoved to the side."
To say the patriarch of this clan is a Ute fan would be like calling the ocean deep or Alaska big.
Harold Marston, a Price native, has been a devout Ute football fan since he began attending the University of Utah in 1970. His obsession began quite modestly, but while the father of three girls was raising his family, he began to show signs of his addiction to anything red.
If driving two hours each way to watch the Utes play on Saturdays isn't evidence of his loyalty, how about what he told his oldest daughter when she dated not just a BYU fan, but a boy whose father worked at BYU.
It was short-lived, and while it was heartbreaking for Wyatt way back then, she acknowledges there was never any hope of true romance with the man in Cougar blue.
"His dad bought him a 1987 Nova with a dent in the bumper if he would quit dating me," said Wyatt, whose cell phone number memorializes four of any Utah fan's favorite numbers — 3431.
Her father's response to this teenage angst?
"I told her, 'That tells you what a stupid (idiot) he is,"' Marston said. "'Because I would have bought him a new car not to date you.' And I would have."
All three of his daughters have graduated from the University of Utah, and he and his wife still cook and deliver dinner to Utah's coaches every Sunday. He's been a season-ticket holder since Jim Fassel was the coach and, like a true soldier, when asked his favorite, he says, "I love them all."
The real evidence of Marston's passion is in his family.
"We have no reason to be such big football fans," said Wyatt, who is the oldest of Harold and Emily Marston's three daughters. "None of us are athletic, but it is athletics that brings us together."
The women said their father's Christmas gift to them each year is tickets to the Utes' bowl game.
His daughters laugh about their first bowl-game road trip, in which Marston rented a minivan — without a heater — and drove 13 straight hours with three sleepy teenage daughters to the Copper Bowl in Tucson.
"We left on Christmas Day to drive down," said Genna Marston Gitlin. "We stayed in the same hotel the team did, and you wouldn't think we would like it, but we loved it."
Wyatt said their more recent trips have grown to include husbands, the four grandchildren and even a few tailgating friends. Although, they're careful about who they invite because they don't like idle chit-chat during the games.
And like their father, their loyalty is unconditional.
"Yeah, we get in arguments with other fans sometimes defending the coaches," Wyatt admits. "We love them regardless, and that's the definition of a true fan. We've never gotten down on them, even in the worst of times."
Wyatt and Marston say some of their best memories are far from the playing field. Marston, who earns a living as a vice president of EnergySolutions, is a talented cook, and he really showed his Ute pride when he began having spaghetti dinners as fund-raisers for the team when coach Ron McBride took the team to the College of Eastern Utah for two-a-day practices.
"Camp Carbon was great," Marston said. "We'd cook up a big steak dinner for everyone at the end of two-a-days."
Wyatt remembers one year when McBride wanted to get the team used to a time change before they traveled to a game in Hawaii.
"They woke the team up to scrimmage at 3 a.m.," she said. "We all turned our headlights on because there were no lights on the field. Me and my dad sat in the stands and watched the practice. We were the only people watching."
Wyatt and Gitlin said those who know them understand they will not miss games for any reason.
"You don't plan a wedding when the Utes are playing," Wyatt said. "We've missed major life events to go to games ... We don't do anything significant during football season."
And if, by chance, one of them happens to be ill, well, the others wish them well and head off to the game.
Marston is the type of fan who is crushed after a loss and elated with a win. He said his best memories are the Liberty Bowl in 2003 and the perfect season in 2004 under Urban Meyer. His worst memory ... well, there are a few of those, as well.
"Last year I sat by Jonny Harline's uncle on a flight up to Washington," said Marston of the tight end who caught the game-winning touchdown pass in the final seconds of BYU's win over Utah. "He told me to watch for his nephew. He said his name was Harline. I said I'd look for him. I saw him all right ... I still see him when I shut my eyes. I still have nightmares about that moment."
Now that Marston has raised three loyal Utah fans, he's turned his attention to his four grandchildren.
Drew Wyatt attended his first game at just 13 days old in a sling worn by his grandfather — for the entire game.
The family loves Ute coaches so much, they saw nothing wrong with coach Kyle Whittingham's attempted onside kick against Wyoming when Utah was up 43-0. It's a move Whittingham later said he regretted, but the Marstons didn't see anything wrong with it. Maybe that's because they know what sympathy can do to a competitor.
"One year we were beating Utah State 35-0 when Fassel was the coach, and Emily said she felt sorry for them," Marston said. "They came back and beat Utah, so we make sure she doesn't feel sorry for anybody anymore."
Emily Marston said while she never went to the University of Utah, she's grown to share her husband's passion for everything Ute.
"It's the one thing that keeps our family together," she said. "We all have that same interest ... We go through the week and do our own thing, and then the games bring us together. It's always been fun, and it keeps us united."
The friendships they've made with coaches, current and past, as well as with other fans, have also enriched their lives.
"We have built relationships with these people that transcend football and make it more than just a game," said Wyatt. "It's personal."
E-mail: adonaldson@desnews.com