I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I did end up getting the day off, though as expected I worked on Friday. I was one of only a handful here.

Clancy and I were invited to the family meal of a coworker of hers for the festivities. We weren’t sure it would work out as our host almost backtracked, saying that someone in the family objected to our presence. At that point I was just as willing to spend T-Day with the Cranston’s upstairs rather than be there because my team won an intrafamily dispute.

Ultimately we were invited and whoever it was that didn’t want us there didn’t give themselves away. Everyone was quite gracious and hospitable. The only awkwardness was really on our part during grace when they thanked the Lord for the Prophet. I can’t remember the wording, but they were definitely refering to Hinckley. But we were guests in their home and acted accordingly.

I don’t come from a particularly large family, so being there with 25 or so family members is quite chaotic in my experience. We sat at a kiddy table, but then again 2/3 of the tables were kiddy tables. The family has 39 grandchildren (not all of whom were there, obviously). We sat with a girl named Tiffany. When she told us that was her name, I couldn’t help but think to myself “Of course your name is Tiffany.” You might have to see her to know what I mean.

The kids were an interesting cross-section of middle-class America, really. You had Tiffany the former cheerleader, Lacy the studious one, and so on. They were all quite pleasant.

Afterwards we played board games. You know, Mormons know the best board games. It’s religious tradition (as I understand it, Abel or Beth can correct me here) to spend Tuesday nights actively engaged with the family (as opposed to simply watching television with). One popular thing to do is board games. I’m sure that Milton Bradley makes considerably more money per capita in Deseret than anywhere else. At the last retreat, I played some German city-building game with one of her coworkers’ husbands. Anyhow, the guy turned out to be a friend of my boss Willard and I now have a standing invitation to their boardgaming group (I haven’t taken them up on it because it’s up in Mocum, but it was a nice offer. Clancy and I ended up playing Midnight Train, a domino-based game that was easy to learn and quite a bit of fun.

I managed to win three of the five rounds, but did so poorly in the first round that I lost to Clancy, who didn’t win a single round herself.

The weekend deserves another post, but suffice it to say it was a good one.