Sometimes, as our song, Red, White, and Blue Christmas croons, you’ve got to cram two holidays into one. This year, we find ourselves in just such a dilemma. A brief survey of our schedule this December will suffice to explain our situation. Yes, we are a little disappointed to not be spending Christmas at home. But we will, we pray, be blessing plenty of people. 

 

So this Thanksgiving we broke out the Christmas Tree and unleashed the ornaments, including my favorite, a little icon of Snoopy as Sherlock Holmes and Woodstock as Watson. With Nat King Cole singing in the background, we sat down for an enormous Martha Stewart meal. Now for those of you who pay attention to our Weeks in Review, you will have perhaps noticed a pattern, namely my preoccupation with food. Hard as it may be to believe, I protest and maintain that I am no over eater or idolizer of edibility. You see, food, for those who travel, becomes a landmark of experience. Food is like those enormous rock piles the Israelites were always raising in commemoration of some grand event. Meals are the milestones of a musician’s odyssey.

 

This Thanksgiving feast was planned over many long miles of road by Annie, our chef in residence (and bound by blood). It began in true Babette’s Feast style with a delicious sweet potato soup, followed by a long cortege of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash casserole (you cannot conceive of its splendor) and asparagus (not to mention the sparkling apple juice). 

 

For dessert, ricotta and jelly puff pastries delighted us all, as did an apple and pumpkin creme pie. In the interest of full disclosure, these two pies, particularly the pumpkin creme, did not fare as well as we hoped. But they were tasty nonetheless and inspired our cooks to greater efforts as the tremendous and monumental success of Alex’s erstwhile vanilla creme birthday cake displayed.

 

Then we played a dynamic round of Beyond Balderdash, our favorite board game, in which I fared very well, ending in the distinguished and victorious position of fourth place (writing that a person in history was famous for the Guinness World Record for the Earth’s loudest flatulence was my Waterloo moment).

 

After much celebration and song, we settled down for the annual tradition of Thanksgiving; that is the Giving of Thanks. For those of you who have participated in your own version of this event, you will be familiar with its inevitable trajectory. First, there is verbal affirmation of the familial bond; that is, you tell your family members that you love and appreciate them. Second, each participant ponders “un-obvious” reasons for Thanksgiving; this usually excludes religious, familial, marital, and all references to personal possessions including the roof over your heads. Third, a session of prayer commences in which everyone’s spirits are raised and lifted, blessed by the knowledge of God’s faithfulness and good will toward those who pursue Him. And finally, a casual conversation follows, centering on the economic, military, geo-political, religious, moral, and all around societal suicide of civilization as we know it. This is followed by more prayer, and ultimately, a long and undisturbed night of deep, deep slumber.

 

And that’s our Thanksgiving (or Christgiving) in Review…