fertility and new life

I was pleased to find this was an easy Easter for me. Easier, that is, than the other Easters I've gone through since losing my faith. Like Christmas, there have always been the questions of how to celebrate, the discomfort of having Jesus be so prominent, the strange feeling that this should somehow be a religious holiday--never mind that I am non-religious.

I attended Episcopal church the Easter I was still a Christian, and it was immensely satisfying for me to celebrate Jesus without any interference from Mormonism. That same month, at the Unitarian Universalist church, they talked about Easter, Passover, Earth Day, and spring all in the same sermon. It was wonderful.

There are enough secular aspects of Easter, so it's easy enough to keep those. How could I tell my son that we're not having a Easter egg hunt? It would crush him. So I've always gone right along with the egg-dying, the hunt, the chocolate. (And I do love me some Cadbury mini-eggs.)

Jesus was hardly a thought in my mind today, except when Little FTA said, "I know what Easter is about. It's about Jesus dying." He'd heard that from his cousin, which is fine. I would have explained that to him anyway (though I am glad I didn't have to deal with the resurrection). I added, though, that Easter was originally a pagan holiday, before Jesus and before the Christians, celebrating the spring and life. And that's why we have chicks and eggs and bunnies--they represent life and fertility.

But he was all, Whatever, can I just have some more chocolate?

holiday

I hope everyone is having wonderful holidays. All my best to you and your families and friends.

I've managed to shake my bah-humbug mood this season and enjoy being with extended family and having fun.

Sideon's thoughtful post really helped, too.

solstice celebration

After a few years of wanting to celebrate solstice, we finally decided to try it. We didn't know until the day of how long we'd have the house to ourselves, so we didn't really prepare as much as I'd have liked. I would have loved to light a fire in the yard with a Yule log, but we didn't have a fire pit or wood, and I didn't check if it was a no-burn day, etc. There's a fireplace in the master bedroom here, but it's fake. Sigh. So we skipped the fire.

Instead, we eagerly waited until the house was empty except for us, then I flitted around the main rooms of the house placing unlit candles on nearly every horizontal surface. On the family room coffee table, we placed three candles for the three of us; one yellow candle to represent the sun and substitute for the Yule log; and a big glass bowl filled with water and sprinkled with gold glitter. The glass bowl also had a candle in the center. We had wanted the yellow candle in the bowl, but it wouldn't fit.

I made sure the lights were out, and we let the house get darker as the sun went down. The three of us gathered in front of the coffee table, and as we waited for sunset (I had looked up the exact time on the Internet), we talked about some of the hardships of the year: leaving our home back East, my uncle dying, my health, our trip postponement. We let the darkness of the long night represent sadness, difficulty, etc., and reminded our son that life sucks sometimes, we're sad sometimes, and that's okay. Little FTA named an incident in school this year when his friend said he didn't want to be him friend anymore. We discussed how that made him feel, and how he might go about repairing that friendship.

Just at sunset, we lit the center candle, then lit each of our candles from the "sun" candle. During this we talked about the sun as happiness, hope, and love, and how the sun makes life on earth possible. Still in the dark except for those four candles, we moved about the house lighting the rest of the candles, as well as turning on the Christmas lights. We lit the yellow one in a very safe candle holder and let it burn all night.

Little FTA was excited about getting his own candle to light things, but he's still young, so we supervised. He dropped his candle right on the carpet once, and luckily the carpet snuffed it out. "Whoa!" he said, "I thought it was going to light the carpet on fire!" Later, he dropped the candle and candle holder on the kitchen floor, and it shattered. (Note: Make sure the kids are old enough to handle the candle ceremony.) Other than that, we had a nice time lighting the candles and watching the flickering flames around the house.

By then, we were hungry, and we'd read that pagan celebrations of solstice involved indulging in good food and the pleasures of life, so we picked a nice organic restaurant whose name meant The Sun. After a three-course meal, most of it foods we'd never tried before, and some yummy microbrews, we headed home and re-lit the candles we had extinguished for safety reasons while we were gone.

It was a very nice little family celebration. I think we've got ourselves a tradition.

solstice

Have a wonderful winter solstice.

Here are some links to information, celebrations, and rituals to help you enjoy your day.

School of the Seasons

Candle Grove: Ancient Origins of Solstice Celebrations

Religious Tolerance: Winter Solstice Celebrations

Circle Sanctuary: Celebrating Winter Solstice

Wikipedia: Winter Solstice

(Picture credit.)

heaven, hell, and screaming latkes

As anyone who’s read my blog for long knows, I am trying to raise my son without religion, while also being religiously literate and tolerant. The teaching-moments come up at odd times, or meet with resistance, or are forced upon us by religious relatives. They are full of significant baggage for me, but refreshingly free of it for him (so far). I’m basically going by the seat of my pants here, and it’s been going fine for the most part.

I had a couple teaching moments recently:

Listening to the radio in the car, my son heard the singer mention both heaven and hell.

“What’s heaven?” he asked.

I decided to go with a simple answer first, and see if he would be satisfied with it. “It’s the best place you could possibly imagine.”

“Oh,” he replied. That was easy enough.

"What’s hell?” he continued.

“It’s the worst place you could imagine,” I said.

“So…in hell, I would have no toys at all.”

“That’s what your hell would be like, huh?”

“Well, can you imagine having nothing? Nothing!?”

Earlier, at a bookstore, I was reading Little FTA a variety of children’s books. I saw one that explained the traditional Joseph, Mary, and Jesus Christmas story. I avoided it at first, but then picked it up. I thought if I read it to my son, I could expose him to the Baby Jesus story on my own terms, and we could talk about it, before he hears it from grandparents on Christmas Eve. But to my surprise, he refused to hear it. Just wasn’t interested. I tried to explain that it’s important to know what his grandparents think about Christmas, but he would have none of it. So instead, we read The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming and Knuffle Bunny Too and Wacky Wednesday and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

my strange sense of humor

When we found out my in-laws were to be out of town the weekend before Christmas, I was delighted. Not only would we have a weekend alone, but it would be the weekend of Winter Solstice. I've been wanting to celebrate Solstice for three years now, but haven't done anything more than light a candle. So with my in-laws gone, I mentioned to my husband that we could have our own little celebration, our style. He was in.

Then my mother-in-law said something about not going away for the weekend after all. In an indirect effort to get her to go like she planned, I piped up with a little humor.

"Well, we were planning on having a pagan winter solstice celebration that day, so...if you want to join us..."

The look on her face was precious. For her, the word "pagan" obviously has the unfortunate connotations of animal sacrifice and devil worship.

"You're kidding, right?" she asked.

I kept it fun. "Nope." I smiled.

"I just hope that celebration isn't happening at my house," she said, unsure about my tone.

"Well, Little FTA was really hoping to run naked around a bonfire..." I laughed.

"Ok-aaaaay...."

I left it at that, letting everyone think I was just being silly. And secretly hoping I'd scared her off to that weekend away after all.

we're happier than everyone else

We got roped into attending a Baptist church's Christmas choir performance today, as my father-in-law was playing in the orchestra. Not our cup of tea, but we wanted to go at least to support him. You know, the "the relationship is most important" mantra I'm trying to use to negotiate this Mormon-EvilAtheist divide in the family.

I sat down with my already bad attitude about Christmas this year, wanting to just get this obligation over. And don't start thinking I'm foreshadowing to a big change of heart where I realized my inner love for Baptist Christmas music, either. 'Cause this ain't about that.

Recognizing my attitude, that I was there to fail to enjoy anything, I tried to soften up and just appreciate the music. Last year I would have appreciated it. I tried through "Go Tell It On The Mountain," and through "Angels We Have Heard on High" (which used to be my favorite Christmas hymn), and through a "Joy to the World" arrangement.

I kept reminding myself that it was just a religious celebration. Could've been Islamic recitations or Jewish singing or of any other tradition, and I would've appreciated it. But I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't get past the baggage. The Christianity. The history and traditions I have rejected.

Maybe if it had been only music and song, it would have been okay. But they had to throw in those proselytizing moments, too. Showing how wonderfully happy Baptists are above other Christians and those poor, lost scoffing non-believers. How Baptists have that special light, that special something-something people recognize in them, but can't quite put their finger on. It sounded all too familiar. The same attitude as a Mormon one, just presented in slightly different terminology.

That non-believer was not giving an substantial arguments, either. He was just a straw man, speaking nothing but what was easy to "answer."

"Nah, there's nothing after death. When you're dead, you're dead!"
"Oh, no! When we die, we got to heaven with Jesus! And we live there in His love forever."
"Oh, really? What was I thinking? Gosh, that'd be great to go to heaven. How do I get there?"

The killer was when the Christian-who-isn't-good-enough-because-he-only-attends-on-Christmas-and-Easter said there must be something to the Jesus story, since it's such an old story. "If people have been telling the story for 2000 years, it can't be just a fairy tale!" Wow, what an argument. 'Cause the story of Zeus? How old is that one? And how long were Egyptians worshiping Amon-Ra? And does that mean the Muhammad's story is only 600 years less of a fairy tale than Jesus'? So if you're going to judge by how old the religion is, should we all be embracing nature worship or something?

After that little proselytizing session, my husband and I were rolling our eyes and decided to sneak out with our son the first chance we got. And we did.

tis the season

I'm rather ambivalent about Christmas this year. I'm almost ready to call myself a Scrooge or a Grinch. I am participating in the festivities, I am buying presents for people, I'm sending greeting cards (that do NOT say Merry Christmas), don't get me wrong. But I feel like all the Christmas around me is too overwhelming and I need to push back to give myself some breathing room.

Perhaps it's the fact that my in-laws over-decorate so much that it looks like Christmas exploded in the house. I'm drowning in Christmas wreaths and advent calendars and ornaments and nutcrackers and cutesy Santa Clauses and various items that for some reason picked up Christmas significance along the centuries but no one is sure why. (Some were stolen from Yule, of course.) And the nativity sets and the Christmas story books about Jesus that my son begs me to read every day.

Perhaps it's the fact that my son's school class is talking about nothing but Christmas. No Hanukkah, no Kwanzaa, no Yule or Solstice, no Festivus for the Rest of Us. Just Christmas, candy canes, snowmen, reindeer, Santa. At least it's the secular version of Christmas at school.

Last year, I didn't mind the secular version. It was so refreshing that a secular version of Christmas was available at all. I think part of that was because there was such diversity in our town, and in school, my son learned about all the holidays. His best friend, a child of secular Jews, invited him over to light Hanukkah candles one night and read him a secular version of the traditional story. So last year, I felt like we chose to celebrate Christmas, because that was our heritage. We celebrated at home, so we were able to keep Jesus out of it and do things our own way. I even ended up choosing to attend church services (a liberal Protestant church) on Christmas Eve.

This year, it feels more in my face, like Christmas is just pulling me along, whatever I think of it. Personally, I'd rather celebrate Yule and Solstice. But my son? The five year old? He LOVES Christmas, the presents, the festivities, the visiting-Santa-even-though-he's-just-pretend. I've been singing him Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a bedtime song all year, at his request. How can I say, "Hold up, dude, we're celebrating the longest night of the year and the return of the sun, mmkay? So no Santa this year"? The momentum of Christmas is a strong current, and I feel helpless in its wake. And that, I think, is why I'm resenting it this year.

"let's think about that some more"

My son is pretty skeptical about the Easter bunny's existence, but I don't want to outright tell him that there's no Easter bunny and Santa Claus, and have him just believe it on my authority. I'd rather he analyze it for himself. Not sure I'm doing a good job encouraging that. This is a re-creation of the conversation we had the night before Easter when I was putting him to bed.

fta: So, do you think the Easter bunny will come to hide eggs in the house?
son: But he's just pretend!
fta: What?! Why do you think that?
son: Because. He's just pretend.
fta: But don't you need a reason to think he's just pretend?
son: I don't know.
fta: Well, we can look at the evidence and decide if there's more evidence that the Easter bunny is real or is just pretend.
son: confused
fta: Do you know what evidence is?
son: No.
fta: It's things that tell us something is true or not true. For example, if I say, "You love the movie Cars," what evidence do we have to support that?
son: I don't know.
fta: How about this: We can see that you have a Cars blanket. And Cars shoes and Cars pillow and Cars sheet and a toy Lighting McQueen and a toy Dinoco The King. Right?
son: Yeah!
fta: So we can say, hmm, I think we have a lot of evidence that you like the movie Cars. All those things are evidence.
son: unsure
fta: Or, we can say it differently. If I say, "You hate the movie Cars," do we have any evidence that tells me I'm wrong?
son: Ummm...
fta: How about the blanket, the pillow, the toys, the shoes...All that is evidence that you don't hate Cars, you love it.
son: Yeah, I love Cars!
fta: So, how about the Easter bunny? What kind of evidence do we have that the Easter bunny is real or just pretend?
son: I dunno.
fta: Well, there's the Easter eggs in our house in the morning.
son: But you buy those!
fta: How do you know?
son: I saw you.
fta: No you didn't; I bought them on the way home from work.
son: Oh.
fta: But you can see that all the kinds of candy the Easter bunny brings are the same kinds of candy that we could buy at the store, right?
son: Yeah, like cranberry mini-eggs and chocolate peanut butter things.
fta: Cadbury mini-eggs.
son: Oh, right. Caaadbury.
fta: Okay, so what good night song do you want me to sing you?
son: Let's think about the Easter bunny some more.
fta: Oh, okay. What other evidence do we have?
son: Um.
fta: How would the Easter bunny get in the house? Does he come in the chimney like Santa?
son: Santa's just pretend!
fta: Really? And we don't have a chimney. Maybe the bunny comes in through the door.
son: He doesn't have a key.
fta: Maybe he knocks and we let him in?
son: Or he breaks down the door!
fta: How rude! But there's no evidence that the door gets broken. We would see it if it broke.
son: Oh. Let's think about the Easter bunny some more.
fta: Okay. Wait a second, have you ever seen a bunny as big as a person? That could talk?
son: No way!
fta: And how would he carry all that candy and those eggs for all the Christians all over the world? That'd be a big bag.
son: Yeah, as big as the Pacific Ocean!
fta: That's so big! Okay, good night. I'll see you in the morning and we'll see what the Easter bunny brought us.
son: But he's just pretend! There's no evidence.
fta: But what about the Easter eggs? Who will hide them?
son: You will!
fta: We'll see. Good night, bud. I love you.
son: I love you too! Good night!

happy easter

Two years ago, I went to an Episcopal church on Easter and enjoyed it thoroughly, given that I still believed in the divinity of Jesus.

Last year, I had this urge to attend a church service. It just felt like it wouldn't be Easter without a religious component. The day before, I decided to go with my family to a congregationalist church where our fellow former-Mormon friends go. The morning of Easter, my husband decided he didn't want to go after all. At that time, I still had this revulsion to attending church by myself, so I couldn't bring myself to go--even though I wanted to. It made me mad at my husband, and I decided a good way to assuage my Easter blues would be to shop for a spring dress. A sexy, sleeveless one. So I drove two towns over to the mall, only to find it closed, of course. Since it was Easter it all. I never did get that dress.

I have since reconciled myself to the idea that my husband just isn't interested in wasting any more hours of his life on church services. That's fine. Sometimes now I do go by myself. Most weeks, I find I need those hours (one hour of services plus commute) to do other things.

This Easter, I haven't felt the pull toward church. It feels just fine for this to be a secular holiday, just like any other lazy Sunday at home, except there's lots of candy.

good friday

Why is it that Mormons never paid attention to Good Friday, Palm Sunday, and all that? (I have to say "all that" because I don't even know what else there is, being raised Mormon.) Seriously, why did our family only pay attention to Easter Sunday and nothing else? And then lament the emphasis on the Easter bunny and the candy? If they really wanted it to be more Jesus-centered ("Christ-centered" as Mormons would say), couldn't they have focused more on the whole ministry of Jesus, the leading up to the death, and then the resurrection?

Was the de-emphasis on the cross and the crucifixion just a way to get away from Catholicism? Growing up, I got the feeling that Mormons were smugly proud of the fact that they emphasized the resurrection of Jesus, not his death. We don't have crosses as symbols, we know the important part is the resurrection. And Gethsemane. Other Christians teach about the whole process from coming into Jerusalem to being tried and tortured, the crucifixion, then the resurrection. But that's not the story I got growing up. The story I got skipped from sweating blood in Gethsemane to the resurrection. Oh, and some stuff in between.

My first Easter season as a mostly-non-believer found me still a believer in Jesus. I think we attended an Episcopal church that day. If you believe in it, chanting "Christ is born, Christ is risen, Christ will come again" is rather comforting, really. In fact, that church service was rather emotional for me. I wasn't sure I believed in Mormonism, so it was refreshing to have a service that didn't have all those strange Mormon teachings and hang-ups, but still had Jesus. Even if you don't believe in the literal resurrection and the Jesus-is-God thing, I can see how the story would still provide comfort in coping with death. (Though it doesn't for me.)

Easter, then, for us, has become about egg-dying and Easter egg hunts. I try to throw is some pagan-ish "See how wonderful the world is in spring! Everything is coming to life, and giving us life! Hooray for the sun!" But really, my son only cares about the Easter egg hunt. He has already decided the Easter bunny "is really just you, Mom!" (he was a skeptic from the tender age of 3) but he still likes the surprise and the hunt anyway. Which is way better than stories about sweating blood in agonizing pain because of some "sin" I committed.

in person

After I came out of the non-believer's closet to my family, a couple months passed before I saw any of them in person. I'm sure there was weeping and wailing, confusion and discussions, praying and fasting, but I didn't have to witness it. I didn't have to go to the house for Sunday dinner, feeling awkward and wondering if anyone would bring it up. No one called to ask why, everyone just gave me plenty of space, and I gave them theirs. My parents had been eagerly asking when they could come visit, but stopped asking.

Even though it wasn't the year to visit my family for Christmas, we thought this would be a good year to visit both families, so we decided to split our Christmas vacation between two states. I wanted to be there in person, showing them that I'm still happy and normal. I wanted to assert that, even though I "gave up eternal family-hood in the Celestial Kingdom," I still loved them and wanted to be with them.

I already wrote about that first visit. But I left out a detail.

I remember this:

It is my parents' tradition to park their car at the airport and meet whoever they are picking up near the baggage claim, rather than at the curb. They like to do this to make us feel special, and it does, really. It's exciting to come down that escalator and cross over the map of the world on the floor, and catch that first glimpse of my parents, tense in thrilled anticipation of seeing us and their grandkid again. I generally don't show much emotion on my face, but it always makes me smile to see them at the airport. They smile, I smile, we hug, exchange greetings, and head off to get the luggage.

But this time was different. This was the first time we saw them in person since our disaffection. As I crossed the floor and caught a glimpse of them, I could see my parents hadn't seen us yet. Then my mom turned and saw us.

She didn't smile.

Instead, she did this thing with her face, where she holds her lower jaw off to one side. It means she's trying to keep herself from crying. She's upset.

She wasn't happy to see me. She was torn up inside, happy but despairing at the same time.

I pretended like I hadn't seen it, and I smiled. I was happy to see them, but I, too, was feeling a turmoil of emotions.

Almost a year later, I was alone in the bedroom one night, and this memory came back to me. I cried myself to sleep.

have a happy holiday

happy holiday

merry christmas

happy yule


That's all I'll post today, because I'm busy enjoying the day with my precious little family. And I hope you are too.

a religious holiday

Okay, so after all my talk about celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday, I felt the pull toward attending a church service this weekend. I don't know why--socialization, habit--but it felt like the holiday would be more complete if I attended a service.

I felt the same way on Easter, but didn't end up attending because my husband didn't want to go, and I couldn't bring myself to attend alone. Since then, I've come to grips with the fact that my husband will never attend, and that's okay with me. So I decided to attend the congregational church where our good friends attend, because their kids were to perform in the pageant, and I knew the (female! WOOT!) pastor is quite liberal about religion.

I wanted to bring our son with me, but my husband doesn't care to send our son to church when I do get the whim to go. I argued that it was to see his friends; he's only little and won't get what's going on anyway beyond the fact that his friends are up front in silly costumes; and he's going to hear the Jesus story somewhere, probably from his Mormon relatives, so it's better to expose him to the story on our terms, where we can talk about it after. Kind of like parents discussing sex with and introducing alcohol to their kids before their teenage friends introduce them in less-than-safe circumstances.

Yes, I did just compare Jesus to sex and alcohol.

I ended up taking our son, and he cried and screamed and pulled me back down the street toward the car, demanding we go home. Our friend met us on the sidewalk and told my son that there would be a goat and a dog in the church for the pageant, and that got him to calm down a little. It took some more coaxing at the back of the church before I could get him to sit down without screaming, but he did sit through the service. Bored as hell. He liked the goat and the dog, and he liked that he got to stand up and sing. But since he didn't know any of the words, he faked it and sang nonsense, or better yet, naughty, words. By the time the pastor got to the sermon, he was asking, too loudly, to leave. But he survived his first church service in well over a year, and he really liked the treats and the running up and down the aisles at the end.

And I had a nice time, too. It was the first time since leaving that I sang songs about Jesus without cringing. I guess it's just the Christmas spirit.

Have a happy holiday.

winter solstice and ritual

I grew up thinking that pagans were the epitome of evil. Worse than Catholics or Muslims, because at least they believed in God. My exposure to pagans and paganism was extremely limited, of course. My only exposure, I think, was from the movie Dragnet with Dan Aykroyd. Those pagans partied, did drugs, stole police cars, dressed in animal skins, and sacrificed virgins. And wasn't there something about playboy bunnies? They were bad. Okay, so I still think sacrificing virgins or anyone else is definitely not a good idea, but my thoughts on paganism have changed.

Not that I've studied about it. A few pokes around internet sites like Beliefnet. The idea of something pre-Christian appeals to me, though. I like the idea of appreciating and caring for the earth and nature, marking the seasons, even to the point of worship, finding peace and fulfillment in it.

And I kind of like the idea of running half naked around a campfire at midnight. (I saw some more-than-cool Irish folks doing that in National Geographic. Jealous!)

Anybody in? Maybe that could accompany a sEXMObile party (thanks Gluby and Degenerate Elite)?

So for this holiday season, I decided to look up some winter solstice activities. I found some ideas at Circle Sanctuary and thought they looked interesting. Trouble is, I think it would feel so forced and artificial if we just started adopting random rituals. Kind of like how lighting the Hanukkah candles felt.

Christmas rituals have so much history with me; there are so many memories tied up into them. The building anticipation, sneaking around the house looking for presents, having a giant sleepover with my siblings, pretending to sleep while really listening for the sound of my parents bringing out the gifts. Cooking Christmas treats, opening one present on Christmas Eve, having a little Christmas program with relatives. Thrashing through the wrapping paper, making a huge mess. Spending all of Christmas day in pajamas, eating junk and snacks, playing with our new toys. Breaking the most popular ones by the end of the day, because we played with them so hard.

These are the reasons I want to keep up the holiday with my son. The secular, Santa side is a great holiday in itself. It managed to be more appealing to me as a kid than the Jesus story. The nativity story factored in only because my parents forced it in; we had to listen to them read Luke 2 before we could go downstairs to see the presents. Their little effort to keep the "true meaning of Christmas" in our minds. Yeah, yeah, let us get to the presents!

I suppose my son is young enough that if we did start some new rituals, they would feel like heritage and tradition to him. So why not? Bring on the Yule wreath, and celebrate with awe how the sun (S-U-N) brings us life.

holidays, this year

I've moved further away from Christianity and Jesus since last Christmas. I finally understand why and am appreciative when people say, "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas." Our town is quite diverse, and while most are probably Christian or of Christian heritage, there are plenty who are Jewish, Muslim, African-American celebrators of Kwanzaa, pagans, secularists, etc.

Not that I've abandoned Christmas. It has a highly-developed secular side. We've put up a Christmas tree because it's part of our heritage, happy childhood memories, and because Christmas can be celebrated quite well as a secular holiday. So many of the symbols of Christmas time are really pagan symbols anyway--the Yule log, the wreath, mistletoe, candles.

I've even put up that nativity set that has sentimental value; I just haven't bothered to keep it in order. We use the camel to hold open the entertainment center door. Whatever. My son doesn't have any interest in it. And that's fine with me. I thought of taking him to a Sunday Christmas church service at a local liberal Protestant church, because his friends will be in the program. My husband would rather not, though, because growing up in America, he'll get plenty of exposure to Jesus and Christianity; it's not like we need to go seek it out. Jesus can be a little in-your-face in the US.

I still cringe a little when Jesus-oriented Christmas songs come on the radio. And I don't really care for secular Christmas songs either. In general, they are overdone and overly cheesy. And yet I found myself humming O Holy Night, and singing Silent Night to my son at bedtime. Because it's just a pretty song to him. He's not going to ask what the hell "round yon virgin mother" means.

The main difference about this year is we're staying home. Mostly that had to do with flights being too expensive. But I'm glad. This is the first year we'll have Christmas with just us, our family of three. It's validating, like we're finally our own family. And it's a bit of a relief: we can avoid Jesus, and do it our own way. It also made Christmas more festive, since we actually put up a tree and decorated it. We'd never done that with our son. The ornaments have memories attached to them; the lights twinkle in a comforting way; the smell of the pine hits when I walk in the door and it makes me smile.

We've also incorporated a little Hanukkah this year. Last year we talked about it, but didn't do anything. This year, our son has several Jewish friends and learned about the different December holidays in preschool. One day, he announced, "We have Christmas; David has Hanukkah. But we are still friends." So we set out a makeshift menorah and have been lighting candles every night. Since we don't know the appropriate Hebrew song to accompany the lighting of the candles, I made up a new ritual. With each candle we light, we say the name of a person we love. It gets us thinking about family and connections, and I like that.

holidays

Last December was my first holiday season as both an ex-Mormon and an ex-Christian. (A lot of Christians would say I never was a Christian, but I'll get into that debate another time. I believed in the divinity of Jesus. Then I didn't. For today, I'll consider that ex-Christian, though there are plenty of Christians who don't believe in his divinity. Anyway...) I was rather torn about celebrating Christmas, since to me the holiday meant "Jesus' birthday" as much as it did "gift-giving, family, Santa," etc.

I felt something of a loss, and wondered if Christmas could still be Christmas without belief in Jesus. I fidgeted about my nativity sets. I got a knot in my stomach when I heard Jesus-oriented Christmas songs on the radio. It just all felt so weird.

That December, I wrote

This is the first Christmas we have not believed in the divinity of Jesus--or even think of him as the best example of how to live our lives. So pulling out the decorations and finding not just one, but three nativity sets, was a bit conflicted. My son immediately recognized Baby Jesus. (How does he remember, anyway?)

For those of you who are not believing Christians anymore, how is the transition from Christmas as the Son of God's birthday to Christmas as a secular holiday?

So far, I'm appreciating it. Family, gift giving, parties, friends, break from school/work. But what do I do with Jesus? Excise him? Keep the nativity set and just teach my son the birth story as a story like the Three Bears? Be sure to attend a Hare Krishna festival when that comes around or read some Hanukkah and Kwanzaa books to balance it all out? Teach that we remember Jesus as a nice guy?

I ended up putting out one nativity set, because it has sentimental value, and I still appreciated the Jesus story as having heritage-value. My husband expressed his feelings about it by switching the nativity figures around, putting Jesus in the back one day, or having Joseph and Mary crouching over a donkey or a sheep instead of the manger. (Blasphemy, I know!) It annoyed me. I guess I still had a place in my heart for baby Jesus.

We celebrated it as a secular holiday in our hearts, but we were with extended, Mormon family, who celebrated by inviting ward members over and singing Christmas songs from the Mormon hymn book and reading the Luke 2 story. It made me kind of sick, especially since probably a third of those in attendance weren't believing Mormons (I didn't know their thoughts on Jesus).

It felt like the believers were demanding belief. And it was their house, so, fine, do what you want in your house. But what about being respectful to guests, accommodating them? It turned out the little program was right during my son's bedtime, and he wasn't feeling good, so I took the opportunity to be a good mother and take him in the other room for the duration. I returned once they were past the religious part and started just hanging out and appreciating the presence of family and friends. Which is the best part of holidays anyway.