Christmas, I mean Holiday Parties

Well, the pioneer party went fine. There were Christmas carols playing in the background but otherwise no mention of the holiday we were/weren't celebrating at all. The kids pulled taffy, ate cookies and beef jerky (mmm, authentic!), drank cider, and made little "jumping jack" toys out of cardboard and popsicle sticks. Pulling taffy took the longest, and most of the kids didn't like it--the flavor of the molasses was too pronounced. But they enjoyed getting their hands all sticky anyway.

I don't mind that they don't call it a Christmas party. Some people don't celebrate Christmas and it's not right to make them feel left out. But it's odd, when some public schools have Christmas trees (my daughter's, for example) and others (my son's) don't, when Christmas carols are OK some places and not others. Mariah's holiday concert was all Christmas music, and most of it sacred--pieces from "The Messiah," a gospel piece called "Jesus, What a Wonderful Child," "Lo How a Rose," etc. The only non-Christmas piece was "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," and the only secular Christmas piece was "The Carol of the Bells." I never heard that anyone complained, but you'd never get away with that at Nick's school.

We put our tree up yesterday. I even put lights outside the house--first time ever! The kids were stunned. I tend to be an anti-display type, but we had these lights (we intend, eventually, to put them up around the back porch for late summer evenings...) and they look really cool. So I put them up around the banister in front. The tree smells nice and we may even get it decorated one of these days--after Mark gets his grading done. (I turned my grades in Thursday but I'm trying not to gloat.)