December (I)

My vote for the cheesiest line that never fails to bring a lump to my throat:

“Dad, this was the best Christmas ever!!”

Given Scooter’s propensity for sarcasm (which mirrors my own), I was caught up short when she uttered this line. But she meant it. And I think I will have to agree, it was wonderful.

I loved it for the following reasons:

1) We started off December by hosting a Christmas party for our Sunday School class. The Lord has blessed us with a group of friends who challenge us and keep us straight. The fact that they continue to check on me and my family even while I’m gone at Susan Song and Kadie is teaching a youth Sunday School class is genuinely touching.

The normal highlight of the party is the “Mean Santa” game. Shockingly, Kadie suggested we box and wrap a toilet seat, which we had recently replaced in our bathroom. Naturally, I supported her idea.

But the highlight of the party by far was the fact that one of our couples successfully delivered a premature baby during the party. (No, not at the party, she went into the hospital several days before). Mom and baby are doing fine and baby should go home this week after spending the first month of her life in the hospital.

2) The last few weeks of school wrapped up nicely. Finals week and grading passed uneventfully. We had an interesting speaker at graduation, which may have been the most remarkable thing about the entire month.

One amusing conversation occurred during graduation when a colleague said “Taran, I just watched a history channel special on the Gospel of Judas. They mentioned something about Jesus’ brothers. Why haven’t I ever heard that Jesus had siblings??”

“Umm, Bill, it’s because you are Catholic and you believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary.”

“Oh….” replied Bill. It amused me, not only because of the topic, but the setting.

3) We participated in four musicals over the Christmas break. Two with schools and two at church.

Scooter’s middle school presentation went well. Fortunately, they have not banished Christmas songs from her particular school.

Although a little Dave Barry goes a long way, I am reminded of his line

“To avoid offending anybody, the school dropped religion altogether and started
singing about the weather. At my son's school, they now hold the winter program
in February and sing increasingly non-memorable songs such as "Winter
Wonderland," "Frosty the Snowman" and--this is a real song--"Suzy Snowflake,"
all of which is pretty funny because we live in Miami. A visitor from another
planet would assume that the children belonged to the Church of Meteorology.”
Dave Barry in his "Notes on Western Civilization" (Chicago Tribune Magazine,
July 28, 1991)

I am part of the university chorale at our school and we had a winter performance that included the insipid “Feliz Navidad.” The only Christmas song worse than Feliz Navidad is “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which to my mind is the Christmas version of “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”

(And yes, I am aware of the supposed Christian elements to this song. It still gets old quickly. And I cannot fire up my imagination sufficiently to view Jesus as “a partridge in a pear tree.” )

But I digress.

The girls were each in a Christmas musical at church and had various speaking and solo parts. All the kids all had their lines/songs down cold, but the adults did not. The girls both nailed their lines and their notes.

The adult Christmas program went well. Kadie and I were 2/3 of a trio for one of the songs. It was a Gaither/Southern Gospel twang number that I would not have chosen to download from iTunes. (But you can listen here to “So Much God” if you want to hear for yourself.)

As we listened to the song in the car, Scooter asked at one point “Daddy, are they singing that way on purpose?” “What way?” I asked. “With those funny accents...” she clarified.

(more to come…including a wrestling injury, Christmas gifts, and a pastoral confrontation)