Thanksgiving '06

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving here in New Haven. Justin’s sister, Rosalyn, her husband Dan, and an eleven-month-old organic tank named Andrew came up for the occasion, arriving Wednesday afternoon and leaving Friday morning. On Wednesday we all went to the Yale Center for British Art and admired the display of Canaletto’s London paintings, though Julia was engrossed by a painting of a lion preying upon a horse while Andrew kept busy baring his feet.

Thursday morning Dan and Justin joined with the hardier element of the New Haven First Ward Elders Quorum and the local missionaries for a Turkey Bowl a-la-mud. It was very cold, very rainy, and very windy. But football is the soul of Thanksgiving just as curling is the soul of Arbor Day. A grand time was had by all, though Dan’s shorts were so muddy when the soldiers of the gridiron returned home that Rosalyn commanded him to consign them to the dumpster. Dan obediently saluted his shorts and bid them an everlasting farewell.

We joined our ward family for a pot luck Thanksgiving feast at the church: Dan made some mashed potatoes, which the missionaries made short work of (the potatoes were gone within three minutes of the missionaries’ arrival en masse); Sister Joyce Thomas prepared the best stuffing and garbanzo beans in the universe; Andrew crawled a cumulative distance of some thirteen miles—round and round and round the chapel; and Julia and a horde of other little yahoos chased after one another at breakneck speeds, with no idea who was leading or who following but giggling magnificently all the same. It was really a lovely experience.

Thursday evening we introduced Dan and Rosalyn to Times Up! ©, a game our good friends Jordan and Alison Johnsen kindly sent us a few weeks ago. Dan dazzled us all with the breadth of his connoisseurship of popular as well as high culture. Justin’s team, we should note, inevitably won—even when Rosalyn was his teammate. Andrew, meanwhile, tried with considerable success first to scour and then to devour our living room.

On Saturday we were in the mood for adventure, so we hopped one and all into the big blue for a trip to the Boston Temple. Mishaps and frustrations and misunderstandings abounded, but in the end we both attended an endowment session, Justin together with some members of our ward who headed north for Ward Temple Day. The chapel in the adjacent lot was open so whoever wasn’t in the temple could wrestle with the girls in the nursery room. Both girls, happily enough, skipped their naps, so neither of us felt cheated of the chance to frolic with our darlings. We got home quite late and crashed in unison.

Saturday’s trip was our first temple trip since leaving Utah, and it was a meaningful one for this and other reasons. The temple always provides precious perspective vis-à-vis this mortal toil, and this was especially so on Saturday. We have a great many things to be thankful for this particular holiday season—Eli’s continued good health and progressively good spirits foremost among them. It was very touching for both of us to see her rolling around, giggling and cooing and squeaking, on the living room rug on Thanksgiving Day. I don’t suppose their can be any greater fount of gratitude than that of a parent who ran the risk, small or great, of losing a child but who now sees that child happy and healthy and smiling and normal. And we’re not any less grateful for Julia’s vibrant spirit and for the patience and fortitude with which she has dealt with all the tremendous interruptions in her life this semester. We dearly love our little girls and praise God for having showered his blessings on our little family.