Events of Thursday, November 25, 2010

          Happy Thanksgiving, all! Our Thanksgiving Day started very early, yes, but not quite as we expected. We had planned to get up at 5:30 am, have Michael drive us to the train station, take the train into New York (since no buses were running on Thanksgiving), and walk to a spot along the route of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then after enjoying the parade, we planned to head home, relax, help with Thanksgiving dinner, and then go to bed. Well, as I said, it did not turn out the way we expected. At 2:30 am, Mom awoke with extreme back pain and the need to go to the bathroom. When she made the move to get up, she found herself stuck. Mom woke Daddy up and he helped her to the bathroom. That sounds like it was easy, but let me tell you, the struggle just to get out of bed and go around the corner to our teeny tiny bathroom was so great that it took almost an hour. When Mom finally made it back to bed, she was in so much pain that they decided that she needed to go to the emergency room. Daddy went inside our host, Oma Janssen’s house and told her what was going on, asked for a hospital recommendation, and asked for the use of her car. She consented and Daddy left a note to Michael. (When we talked to Oma Janssen about this later in the day, she didn’t remember talking to Daddy at all and so we determined that she was still asleep). While Daddy was in the house, I awoke and went back to our parent’s room, confused to why their light was on in the middle of the night. Mom told me about everything and gave me keys to the RV and one of our cell phones. It took almost another hour for Dad to get Mom out of the RV and into Oma Janssen’s car. As they disappeared into the night, headed to The Valley Hospital, I eventually fell asleep, for 3 more hours.

          Ben and Abby awoke around 6:50. Abby asked what time it was. Ben glanced at his watch and yelled, “Oh no, we overslept, it’s 6:53!” He and Abby ran to Mom and Dad’s empty room and Ben yelled, “They’ve left without us!” By now, all of us were awake, so I told them to calm down and I would tell them what was going on. Once they were informed, they calmed down and eventually settled down to try to go back to sleep. Caitlin gave up and went inside and we all soon followed. Still in our pajamas, we ate breakfast and searched for NBC’s coverage of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. After flipping channels for a while, we finally found the right one and then had to endure Martha Stewart’s Thanksgiving dinner cooking show, but eventually, around 9 o’clock it all started. The pre-show performance highlighted acts from several different Broadway productions. Around 9:30, we finally got a call from Daddy telling us that they were headed home. After receiving several doses of pain killers and muscle relaxants via IV, Mom was finally able to sit up and walk a few steps without pain.

          When they finally came home, they joined us in watching the parade. Frequently we would point out balloons that we had seen blown up yesterday. Occasionally one of us would recognize a place on the street that we had thought might be a good place to view the parade. Abby counted the tubas in the marching bands like she does every year, only she lost count this time. Thus we all chilled, warm and very comfortably until the parade ended. And we all agreed that even though this hadn’t been the planned way to view the parade, it was enjoyable all the same.

          Now that the parade was finished, we ate a light sandwich lunch and then did some laundry, started to pack up the RV, and helped Oma Janssen with preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. These preparations stretched on for several hours, during which Mom and Daddy got some much needed sleep. But, Caitlin, Abby, and I helped set the full length table for ten people complete with a fancy tablecloth, Oma Janssen’s great-great-grandmother’s china, silver, and candles. There were wooden Pilgrims standing on either side of a stuffed cloth cornucopia and many candles decorating the table with a warm, comfortable and yet formal air. Ben busied himself with fixing little things in the RV and helping with the heavy lifting. At Caitlin’s request, we all dressed up a little for the occasion and did a few last minute preparations for the big feast.

          Finally it was time to eat and we all sat down and Daddy said grace. I said there were ten of us, that is Daddy, Mom, Caitlin, Ben, me (Lindsey), Abby, Oma Janssen, Michael, another German intern, Kathi, and Carry Grant, a good friend of Oma Janssen’s from Amsterdam. We had a delicious meal and it was very special since this was Michael’s and Kathi’s first Thanksgiving. Oma Janssen taught all of us how to toast the way they do in Denmark and shared her family tradition about going around the table and sharing what we were thankful for. Then we talked about Europe and our adventures and had a generally wonderful time! Stuffed to the full, we cleaned up and went to bed exhausted and thankful from the tops of our heads to the tips of our toes that our Thanksgiving Day turned out the way it did!