Who’s Your Daddy?

Let the games begin! As most holiday shoppers will attest to, window shopping is for the ill-informed. If you are not prepared with a hard copied list of toys and other holiday paraphernalia related to Christmas gifting one mine as well park their ass in front of the computer and shop online this Christmas season. I advise- do not venture forth into oblivion with no concrete plan. Getting lost in the dangerous shuffle of crazed shoppers and crying children despite the cheery, tinkling music pumped from every cavity of every shopping establishment known to man, is bound to happen.  While usually my shopping consists of food or the occasional outing to Target, the premises are all my own.  No lines to conquer or carts to dodge or snarky cashiers to endure. It is just me, my kids, and the retirees. It goes without saying that I usually get a good parking spot, as well. One right upfront next to a cart return for easy unloading of children/merchandise without having to stray afar.  But, unfortunately, everyone is in holiday mode, shopping and employed patrons alike.  All of the the above I take for granted until, quite precisely, the day after Halloween. Then all the real whack jobs decide to leave their dwellings to get their shopping done before the “shopping madness” begins. 

Just two weeks ago my family and I ventured out into the wild unknown to witness a woman stepping into the middle of a busy parking lot arms waving, mouth going, “Hold up, hold up!” in order to allow, what I am assuming to be her family, to cross the street.  Much to my bewilderment cars slowed to let them pass while approximately fifty feet to the left of this oblivious lunatic BEHOLD… a crosswalk.  Imagine that. While we are on the topic, word to the wise- familiarizing oneself with the layout of the local shopping mall and parking lot is a smart move or else I can assure more than one mall goer will be asking Santa for a new car. The reason one might ask? A a result of a game of chicken –the award being a parking spot that is apparently paved in gold this time of year.  It only becomes worse as the days are ticked off the Advent calendar. Ironic, is it not?  Every season it is quite amazing to see the unraveling of sanity before me. Even the kids wish Santa would get here already if not to come downstairs to see a living room stuffed to the ceiling with toys, than for their parents to return to their bodies to serve a happy feast and enjoy what is left of the holiday vacation.

Somewhere among the public shenanigans of holiday shopping lay the true meaning of Christmas. Nothing is more important than emphasizing this to my daughter especially when a child of the age of three is beginning to realize Christmas equals Santa which equals TOYS. So in the midst of decorating, tree trimming, list making, and cookie baking there are talks of God, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Katie furrows her brow in puzzlement while she takes it all in. I know she understands Mary as mom, Joseph as dad, and baby as Jesus.  But what totally blows her mind is where God comes in, why he lives in the sky above the clouds, why a sin is doing “not nice things,” and why Jesus created “time out” so that I can say I am sorry. Last year she asked me if he lived with the giant from Mickey Mouse’s Jack and the Bean Stalk.  This year she thinks he lives in space with the stars. The literal world surrounding a three year old is the only tool available to sort out what you place before them. It drives me bonkers. No possible explanation is sufficient enough. This story does not add up in her mind.  Katie asked me today why baby Jesus is so old if he is a baby. Sometime in the future when she finally understands God and Jesus on another level she will look back on these moments and say to herself what a dumbass my mother was. Although I know enough about religion to get her by, I myself find it torturous to explain it in preschooler terms.  “But, he’s not a baby anymore. He’s an ‘dult.’  ‘Dults’ don’t have birthdays,” Katie insists. I tell her it is only a celebration of the day he was actually born, just like when Steven was born, when you visited him in the hospital. Her baby brother is still an anomaly to her.  As far as she knows Steven magically appeared in mommy’s belly, grew until he could not fit anymore and the doctor poofed him out like a fairy. Silence can only mean I have completely failed her or I was graced with divine intervention at that exact moment.  I am betting on the latter. After the moment of silence I asked who Jesus’ daddy is to which she replied rather confidently, “Santa!” Bits and pieces are beginning to fall into place but in the meantime I think I can say she spends a good chunk of bedtime trying to figure it all out. In the end I am pleased Katie is asking questions, contemplating and formulating an idea of what the true spirit of Christmas consists of.  But thank God for Christian pre-schools otherwise my daughter would grow up thinking Jesus is a perpetual infant poofed from Mary’s belly and Santa Clause is his daddy.