Holiday Mashup

Happy Hanukkah! Merry Advent! It's just a Judeo-Christian wonderland in this house. This year Lowell has taken QUITE the interest in this Baby Jesus guy and really not a day goes by without some kind of question or insight on who he was and why we celebrate his birthday. I've been explaining the Christmas story to him and answering his questions about Jesus as best I can but he is at a trees-instead-of-forest kind of age so he usually can't get past things like why Jesus isn't a zombie if he came back from the dead. (These things usually come out of his mouth when we're in the car. It's a Christmas-Hanukkah miracle that I haven't driven off the side of the road yet.) Also there has been some wondering as to why Hanukkah isn't someone's birthday since we light candles. (Willa also was confused and started to sing "Happy Birthday" on the first night when we started saying the prayer.) He knows the Hanukkah story but I can understand the confusion. The really interesting thing is that I notice he's starting to ask why people don't celebrate both holidays like we do. We've been talking about beliefs and I am now getting grilled on a daily basis about what I believe. So far I am only committing to Santa. In the meantime though, we've been having fun cutting snowflakes, making ecumenical cookies, and dancing to non-Jesusy sad-core carols.