Last year, all four of our children (plus a husband, a boyfriend, and three of our friends from work) all gathered for a big Thanksgiving dinner and pie-and-cheesecake affair. We do pie right. Thirteen desserts for eleven people. But this year, we are by ourselves. The kids are scattered in Oregon, Kentucky, and Wyoming. So until Christmas, our nest is empty.

I am coping with this very well. So well, in fact, that I decided to write a song. Well, I didn’t write it from scratch. I actually changed the lyrics to Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from Les Miserables. If you don’t know this song, it is an amazing song from an amazing musical. Watch the video to hear the original and compare it to mine. There’s quite a few board game references in there, be forewarned.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Empty Chairs and Undone Puzzles

There will be no Halo Coop,
There will be no Carcassonne.
Empty chairs and undone puzzles,
Now my kids have moved and gone.

Here they talked of Telestrations,
Here it was they lost the game,
Here they sang of Wizard Junior but Daddy always won.

At the table in the corner,
We would play Dead of Winter,
And the hordes of zombies coming,
And I can hear them now
See the cards that they had played
Before they lost Dominion
And also Agricola, by dawn.

Oh my kids, my kids forgive me
That I played when it’s your turn
That is how I beat your token,
And now the smack goes on and on

Seven Wonders leaves me broken,
Boggle leaves me on the floor,
Empty chairs and undone puzzles where my kids will live no more.
Oh my friends, my friends don’t ask me
Who this pumpkin pie was for
Empty chairs and undone puzzles
Where my kids will live no more.