Explaining Christmas to One Confused Kid

We’re back from Disney World! Thankfully we left just before the place started getting really crowded.

The trip went great, plenty of sunshine, hardly any rain, and was an overall success. My wife and I were concerned about experiencing some major breakdowns since our daughter went without a nap for well over a week. But thankfully no major incidents except for one very odd thing that happened, which I’ll write about at some other time.

One big thing we do every year there is attend something called the Candlelight Procession at Ecpot. Which is rather nice show of tradition Christmas music with local youth and church choirs from around Florida and some celebrity narrator. Our celebrity was Whoopi Goldberg.
When Whoopi was talking my daughter somehow figured out that the baby everybody was talking about was the same Jesus that's dead and bleeding on the cross. During the performance she yelled at the wife and I, “Oh no! They killed the baby!!”
It seems like since we’ve been back I'll I've been doing is answering questions about why they killed the baby.
In addition to that, thanks to her preschools downplaying of Christmas and up playing of other holidays she’s been asking us where’s our Menorah candles at home and who are we celebrating Kwanza with.
For the record we don’t celebrate Hanukkah but have lots of Jewish friends and co-workers that do, and don’t even know of anybody that celebrates Kwanza.
That didn’t stop her from explaining the seven principles to others and singing to them a few Kwanza songs.

I had no idea they has songs now. Most of them sound remarkably close to Christmas songs.

I’m just waiting until Festivus gets so mainstream that they end up teaching that in preschool as well. I’m sure preschoolers would enjoy the “Airing of Grievances” (“I hate it every time you play with MY toys!”) and the “Feats of Strength” wrestling the head teacher to the classroom floor on the circle time mat.

Anyway, whatever you celebrate: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Umoja Kwanza, Another Festivus Miracle, or Happy Birthday.

Things Never To Ask a 4-year-old And Other Exciting Stuff

I can’t even describe how busy we’ve been the past few weeks…

After 3-years of demanding and difficult work, my wife finally graduated from Pepperdine University with her MBA last weekend. I for one couldn’t be more proud of her. Working full-time, going to school, papers, group projects, and having a family wasn’t easy.
When she began our daughter was only 18 months old and at the time we thought it wouldn’t be too straining on our daughter and marriage when in fact, at times, it was downright stressful. But thankfully we all survived and she did it. We’re celebrating the occasion by going to Disney World all next week.
My advice for any spouse thinking of going back to school with little ones is to make sure you don’t overdo it and make time for your family. Take advantage of those breaks between semesters and plan on some time during the week too.

Last week in preparation for the graduation we asked our daughter what she was going to wear to the festivities. She announced that she would be attending the grand ceremony dressed as Cinderella.
That was interesting…

I Am On Facebook…Kind Of.

Thank you all for the invitations but regrettably I am not on Facebook under Creative-Type Dad. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about my dislike of “friending” people and all of the spam that comes with it about people doing stupid things like going to the bathroom, eating, walking to the car, and left the city life for farming. It all drove me insane!

That doesn’t mean that I’m not on it though. I am, but as an 80-year old bee farmer from Norway named Gjertson B Gjertson.
You can search and read about me but I am not accepting any friends. My wall is viewable to everyone and posts of my achievements in mindless Facebook games like Uno and Pet Society, as are my fandom of bacon and petitioning to get KFC to deliver popcorn chicken to my house.
On occasion, I sometimes post nonsense about Norwegian royal’s, news, or my interpretation of bee farming.
It’s all very touching.

And Speaking Of News…

My wife is pregnant with our second child! I can’t even begin to say how much I’ve wanted to spill the beans about this - I’m the worse person to hold a secret. But my wife wanted to wait until people started to think she was getting fat. The baby is due next May, which seems forever right now, but as with our first I'm sure the time will go by much too fast.
We find out what the sex is just after Christmas but that hasn’t stopped my daughter from coming up with names for the baby.

Some “name” suggestions:
-Peanut Butter
-Pickles
-Princess Ariel
-SaunaNana
-Bunny Rabbit
-Super Shiny Baby
-Lightening Bubblegum
-Rainbow
-Blue Waterfall
-Piggy Petunia
-Henry

In the car yesterday she asked me how the baby got into mommy's tummy.
The next few weeks, and months, should be really interesting...