So, about 70% of our Christmas is officially behind us. This is a “Christmas in Lubbock” year for my brother and his family, so we had our faux Christmas Eve with our family last night. This is comprised of the exchanging of all gifts involving our parents, our grandmother, or any member of his nuclear family as either the giver or recipient, as well as the eating of copious amounts of junk food. Fun (and prodigious loot) was had by all. I always look at the piles of toys, games, movies, clothes, various kitchen implements, and Lord-knows-what-else and think we are all quite spoiled (which is true). Then I hear about how much other people buy for their kids and grand kids, both in the category of those that make me look modest and those that make me look extravagant, and realize how relative it all is.
And how it is all beside the point.
We’ve decided to fore go the holiday observations involving a certain red-suited elf this year in the interest of focusing attention back toward the religious significance of Christmas. This decision was somewhat reinforced when I asked Ren a few weeks ago if she knew what the point of Christmas was. I was expecting her reply to be something along the lines of “it’s when Santa bring us presents” or maybe even “to spend time with family”; I unfortunately never really humored the possibility that she might actually identify it as the time when we celebrate Christ’s birth. Her actual response to was even worse than I was expecting, though not terribly surprising: “so we can get lots of presents.” To make matters worse, she couldn’t even think of why we might give presents on Christmas; not surprising, as she is not associating the holiday with Christ’s birth. Don’t get me wrong, I know that information must be in there somewhere – we go to Celebrate Jesus and the Christmas Eve candlelight services, so the association is being made – but she spends far more of her time around the holidays watching Rudolph and Santa Claus is Coming to Town than anything with a religious angle to it (although the Little Drummer Boy is also on one of those DVDs, so at least the nativity story is getting thrown in occasionally as well). All of this is to say that I am feeling rather convicted about trying to focus less on the secular and more on the spiritual aspects of Christmas. Not that I have a problem with the gift giving, it at least has a religious connotation and my mother is a gift giver by nature besides. I would just rather focus on teaching my kids that we give gifts to commemorate the magi’s gifts to Jesus than because some cultural icon that evolved from an amalgam of Celtic folklore and a Catholic saint brings them to us.
I sound jaded now, don’t I?
*steps down off the soapbox*
The unfortunate downside to performing what I have always viewed as the central observation of Christmas (i.e. the Bailey Family Christmas Eve) a week early is that it throws off my mental calendar; my first thought when the radio came on in the car Monday morning on the way to work was “why are they still playing Christmas music?” I had to remind myself that Christmas had not, in fact, already passed. It’s not like Christmas will go by unobserved, we still have the presents from ourselves and Denine’s side of the family to open, and since our usual tradition is already done with, the Baileys that are left in town plan to spend the day catching up on the holiday season movies we haven’t had the chance to see. Because nothing says holiday cheer like long-haired princesses, cyber warriors, and wizards. Oh well, at least Narnia has a heavy spiritual tone.
In baby-related news, we are finally making some headway on the nursery. Last weekend we got most of the fabric bought for the crib bedding and curtains, and this weekend I got some more prep work done for moving the kids into one bedroom. We’re supposed to buy a crib this weekend (between movies, I suppose), and as soon as Ren is moved out we can start thinking about painting. Even though the baby bump pic for this post is at 24 weeks, we are officially at 25 as of last Friday, so we only have 15 weeks (theoretically) to get everything done. Which somehow seems simultaneously a long time, and not nearly long enough to get everything done. Oh, and throw in still needing to get our shower fixed before then like I promised.
So much for things slowing down after the holidays.
Oh, and we may be changing the name. Nothing official yet, though.
Eh, I got nothin'...
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