Peterson Family Christmas Variety Show 2009 from hamiltongbp on Vimeo.
McKenna has been practicing her spelling a lot lately. The words have just started getting hard. She was very proud one day when she announced to me that she could spell Christmas and she wanted that word to be a word for her next spelling test. Then she promptly spelled it for me. I was impressed, not amazed since she is my child, and then she explained to me why she knows it. A strategy that I teach at work is to relate it to something you already know so I wasn’t surprised when she said “daddy’s name is Chris so it is his name and then mess”. Then she spelled Christmas. Well, “chrismess” would have worked because Chris IS a mess but, come to think of it, he is a lot of mass too.
Then she went on to say “Christ”, “mass”, “like Christ as in it is Christ’s birthday and then mass”. I was even more proud of her now. She knows that Christmas is for Him. And no, I am not talking of Chris with a capital H for him because Chris thinks he is so important that I need to capitalize any of his referential pronouns. No, I am saying that He, the Lord, is Christ and McKenna knows that Christmas is all about Him. He is the reason for the season.
It is about peace and love and joy and all that good religious stuff that gets me out of the house most Sundays. Thank you to the great kids’ pastors that we have at our church.
So, the next question from McKenna was “what does X-M-A-S spell?” I could tell her what it spelled but I could not tell her why it was spelled incorrectly. I ended up telling her that not everyone is as smart as she is. Not everyone knows the right way to spell Christmas. It was one of those answers that I just quickly said. It would go in one ear and out the other because it would take too much effort for me to explain the real answer. If you have kids this age or can remember what it was like, you know. I don’t lie to her often and I never lied until I had kids.
It got me thinking. How many people are unfortunate enough that my “lie” is actually true? Not just that they don’t know how to spell Christmas but that they don’t know the reason for the season. That made me sad. Someday I can share the truth with McKenna but I pray that I can share the Truth with you all right now. Love and peace to all my friends and family, during this holiday season and for the new year.
