While our senior editor feverishly works to perfect the document we will be disseminating in lieu of a Christmas card, our photo editor will post pictures from a most eventful week with brief commentary.


Moving backwards, this week has brought your favorite Connecticutians to a new and profound appreciation for the industry and promptitude of the powers-that-be in the Beehive State. The .88 inches of precipitation that fell last night cancelled all church meetings today; the 2 inches that was forecasted to fall Thursday afternoon closed the Pediatric Surgery center at the hospital beginning at 10 am (we cared because Eli has an inguinal hernia we would've liked to have fixed before the holidays), closed all New Haven primary and secondary schools, and backed up traffic to such an extent that a friend taking fellow ward members to the airport in Hartford took seven hours to travel less than 60 miles. Such cruelly inclement weather did have some sunny attributes, however, the chief of these being quality time with Daddy. The girls have loved it, spending it in most creative ways, not the least of which entailed tossing a heavy blanket over the Chapmans' basketball pit and tossing a heavy father into it. These were the results: It lasted longer than you'd expect, though this snug time was spent more in singing various pieces from The Messiah than in hooping it up.

With spars over toys starting early this morning, and with no prospect of church and separate nurseries to intervene, we decided to present Eli with one of her Christmas presents early.

She loves it.

Quite fortuitously, it's a good 6" shorter than Julia's own steed, so despite its hobby being covered in red velvet and its ear eliciting whinnies and neighs interspersed with such cavalrous favorites as The Battle Hymn of the Republic and The Lone Ranger, Julia has, for the most part, accepted the logic that the short pony is Eli's, the tall one, Julia's. (And if that didn't work, I could always pull out the receipts and show her that her horse cost $5 seven months ago, Eli's only $3.50, so I love her a full $1.50 more than her sister, and that with a rampant disregard for inflation).

Friday the Law School had a Holiday Party. Santa Dean Koh Clause had just left when we arrived, but we still helped ourselves to food, face painting, and general frolicking. Julia, carried away by the holiday spirit, requested a pink birthday cake.

Eli drug this cross between a taco and a pot-sticker all across the dance floor before handing it to me to consume. I remembered where I had seen that bit of food before right after swallowing. Gross!

After the party we scoped out a rumor that a Barnes and Noble a couple cities over was going out of business and there were excellent deals to be had. With only 40 minutes of superfluous driving and one hit at a B&N that was definitely not going out of business and was certainly full-priced, we finally found this to be no rumor. Justin will be most pleasantly surprised when he unwraps his Christmas present of Plutarch's Lives in two volumes; Lia will surely be exultant to find the Complete Works of Jane Austen wrapped just for her under the tree.

Last Sunday and Monday were a non-stop party. Lia's Buffalonian grandparents stopped by once again, bearing even more gifts than on the first instance. If all of them were enumerated, some of our more petty readers (Chari Suttner) might turn green with envy, so we'll let a few pictures show some highlights:

Those characters were handcut and painted by Lia's grandpa, and these toys really weren't the half of it. That evening Lia and Grandparents went to the Yale Divinity School for an organ recital on the School of Sacred Music's new organ. To demonstrate the organ's wonderful accompaniment capabilities, four hymns had the words printed in the program for the audience to sing. Unfortunately, 16th century organ music of the Reformation tradition wasn't exactly Grandpa's thing. At one point, after sitting sullenly for about ten minutes, he leaned over to Grandma and whispered "You owe me a bull fight for this." Feeling herself above torturing the elderly, Lia feigned a coughing attack and ran out of the chapel at the first program break, beckoning her grandparents to follow. "Had to cough?" Grandpa inquired. "Yeah, but it's late anyway..." "You did me a FAVOR! Boy!"

The next day they took us grocery shopping with the injunction to buy whatever we wanted without looking at the price (my grandparents attest that they once took she and Lia's siblings to a toy store with a similar command. After standing glued to their respective spots, totally bewildered at such monetary freedom, each child came back with a Pez or some equivalent, this being the wildest their imaginations could dream. This is with the exception of Caci, however, who came back with all fifteen of the collector's editions of Barbie, and who, seeing the Pez in everyone else's hands, inquired, "What do you want that for? I got that for you on your last birthday.") They must have meant it, because Grandma's estimate of the total on our overflowing cart was only $30 short, probably because she had missed the box of luxury diapers stashed underneath.

After that we heard a few good stories about Opa as we drove to Torrington, CT to visit Christmas Village. With a Santa enthroned in a cabin-like room decked with toys to the ceiling, a wood-burning stove, and huge Christmas tree; a Mrs. Clause wing; an elves' workshop with a choo choo train circling around overhead and three little people working away amidst a stockpile of the year's most coveted toys; pens of real reindeer and complimentary hot chocolate awaiting you at the end, the excursion was nothing short of magical.

Blogger has gone to sleep, so we'll pass on the pictures of the reindeer. You, fair reader, have probably as well, so no one sits the wiser anyhow.