Kids' Christmas thoughts

Some thoughts I had about watching my kids experience a Christmas, especially Tobey who is understanding more and more each year:

- The birth of Jesus and all the events surrounding it are difficult to explain. Talking about how Mary came to be with child without wanting to start sex ed at age 3 or why not take an F-14 airplane to Bethlehem instead of a donkey or camel, really forces you to peel apart the story at every possible level.

- While Kelsey (age 6) was singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing and O Come All Ye Faithful by heart, Tobey, my pagan child, was asking for Jingle Bells. It dawned on me that he isn't going to know the Christmas carols unless we play them at home or teach him. He won't get it at school (they sang "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and "Frosty the Snowman") and ironically, he doesn't get it at church (I'm not sure how much the kids program emphasized Christmas, although we were gone for most of December anyway so how would we know). I am happy to report though that when we sang Hark the Herald at the Christmas party, at least he recognized it as the song from Charlie Brown Christmas and by vacation's end, he could sing the first verse.

- I don't know if it's age or because we've never emphasized gifts but I'm proud to say that Tobey didn't exhibit any greedy gift behavior that I could tell. I took Tobey shopping with me and although he did latch on to a garbage truck at Toys R Us (which Tom eventually got him later for Christmas), he never complained that we were shopping to GIVE gifts away, not to buy for ourselves. Whether for the Giving Tree kid or for his cousins, he never whined for his own toys. And I think for that reason I will not institute a gift list for the kids. Because I don't want them to think about what they WANT for Christmas, just appreciate what they got.

- And finally, it's so typical, I could only laugh. After getting new toys from us and some new stuff from family, Tobey and Eli yesterday were fighting over a BOX that one of the toys came in. I kid you not, Tobey was filling the box with our (old) toys and Eli is always interested in what Tobey is playing with. They could have cared less about all their new stuff -- they were fighting over a box.