Santa and the Separation of Church and State

First, I want to say that I love my kids' school. I love their teachers. They are wonderful and these thoughts are not a criticism of them at all. I am not mad. I feel no need to complain about anything they have said or done. It's all good.

However, the whole Santa issue has made me come to the realization that the separation of church and state is a really good idea.

We live in a small school district where holidays are still celebrated. I like that. I think it's kind of weird not to acknowledge what most kids are experiencing in their lives. Roy came home from school with a Kwanza candle holder he had made (I'm sure there's a name for it...displaying my ignorance.) and I'm really good with that. I want my kids to know about what goes on in the world outside their tiny bubble. I'm not mad that there wasn't also a unit about Jesus' birth. My kids already know about that. Teaching them is my job.

What I think is strange is that teachers are so pro-Santa as if everyone teaches their kids that Santa is reality. I mean, I get why teachers don't spoil the fun for the ones that do. I'm not saying that teachers should out the parents and the whole charade, but to be totally Santa-focussed is almost a form of religious-persecution for the poor kids who have been told the truth that Santa is make-believe.

I mean, it would be one thing if they presented the religion of Santa as a belief as they would any other belief system...i.e. Christians believe such and such, Jews believe thus and thus, Hindus believe whatever, Santa followers believe that a big fat man in a red suit is the one who brings your presents on Christmas etc., but they don't present it that way at all. Instead, the teachers have kids write letters to Santa. Teachers say things like, "I hope Santa isn't watching you right now." (Fact, although I will never reveal where I heard this.) They give out Santa gifts. It's all Santa for the month of December.

This has turned one of my kids into an anti-Santa evangelist. We are not anti-Santa, but we have taught our kids that Santa is a myth and something parents play with their kids at Christmas time. We have told them it's not their job to tell kids that their parents are wrong. However, I kind of feel that the constant barrage of Santa propaganda probably made my scrappy son feel backed into a corner where he felt the need to fight his way out.

Today, one of his friends tattled on him to me. "Sarah, he doesn't believe in Santa." As if to say, "Can you believe that? Tell him he is wrong!" I wanted to defend my son but I also didn't want to ruin the whole game for him and his family so I said, "Do you think you can still be friends even though you don't believe the same things?" He said he thought they could.

When an entire group of adults goes to such great lengths to convince my child of something that no one believes to be actually true, it makes me glad that teachers are not allowed to try to convince my child of a belief system that they do actually believe to be true. I mean, I think that people get all bent out of shape about the separation of church and state because they assume that everyone is a Christian and that their kids' teachers would be teaching them Christian principles. But what if my kid's teacher is an atheist? We live in a country where hiring decisions are not based on religion so this is entirely possible. Do I want my child, in a public school, to be taught that there is no God? I really don't. So I think the same can be true of a parent who is an atheist in regard to Christian beliefs.

Frankly, I feel that my kids' spiritual education is my job. Actually, all of their education is my job, however, I am totally OK with getting lots of help from the amazing educators in our public school system. I don't expect them to do it for me. Take reading, for example. I do my job by reading to my kids for hours and hours, introducing new vocabulary, exposing them to tons of books and listening to them read. The mechanics of reading and all those tricky grammar rules, they have learned from teachers. How about math? They pretty much taught themselves by playing and watching sports, but all the rote practice is enforced by teachers. I'm pretty sure that my kids' teachers do not have to love Jesus in order to be awesome at helping my kid learn to read and do math.

When it comes to enlisting help with our kids' spiritual education, we found people who love Jesus. We have a great church community with other families we trust and our kids know. They have Sunday School teachers and pastors and other adults who encourage them in their budding faith. But I don't expect these people to do my job.

In Deuteronomy 5, God gives the people the 10 commandments. Then in chapter 6, Moses tells them that these commandments are to be upon their hearts and that they are to impress them on their children (or teach them diligently to their children). He goes on to say, "Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." Basically, teaching our kids about God is supposed to be an all the time thing that happens in families. God didn't say, "Send them to school so they can learn about me." No, he tells us to do it.

I'm really not bent out of shape about Santa at school. And no, I did not tell my son that he is facing religious persecution because of his unbelief...that's just me being melodramatic. But it did give me some small peek into the life of someone who might hold a different view than the majority and an appreciation for letting parents be the teachers.

Book Review--Where the Pink Houses Are

If you are looking for a reason not to do any housework, go ahead and start this book. If you have too much work to do, wait until you have a day off. You will not be able to put it down!

If you have a Kindle you can download it today. If you have a Nook, you can still download it today through WestbowPress.com as a pdf.

Brenna is a tragic character being both an orphan and young widow. Following her former mother-in-law to Ireland promises to be a needed escape and change of scenery in an otherwise lonely existence. Besides, her mother-in-law is the only one Brenna has left. Where Anna goes, Brenna goes.

The last thing on her mind is love, but apparently her beauty is irresistible and the local lads are drawn to her charm. A short term vacation turns into an extended stay and Brenna learns to forge friendships and navigate a painful new relationship that is wrought with drama.

Brenna's budding faith is growing, but so is the emotional turbulence that leads to a life-changing decision akin to watching a train wreck. This is my favorite kind of story, however. There's plenty of real-life mess with a hefty dose of redemption. It might seem too good to be true, but if you don't want a happy ending, you can watch the evening news.

In full disclosure, this book was recommended to me by the author, Rebekah Ruth, who was going to be a friend of mine in Buffalo had we not moved to Omaha, but through the wonderful invention of Facebook is a cyber friend whom I can observe, admire and support from afar.

http://www.amazon.com/Where-Pink-Houses-Are-ebook/dp/B006K8XPYO/ref=sr_1_1_title_1_kin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323748143&sr=1

Confessions of an Email Hoarder

Wow. It's so obvious now, but why it has taken me so long to reach this conclusion is a mystery. I've already confessed my natural tendency toward hoarding so it's not all that surprising actually, but I really thought that I had licked it pretty good. No one would walk into my domicile and accuse me of hoarding. I do a pretty good job of getting rid of stuff so it doesn't overtake the few bits of space that we need for wrestling matches.

But today, I was called out by a complete stranger for email hoarding.

When Yahoo switched to unlimited data storage it was the best and worst thing that could have happened to me. On the one hand, it's awesome that you don't have to delete large documents, photos, etc. to make sure that your emails don't get bounced. Remember those days? Someone would send a few pictures and you'd be done for. Don't even try to go away for a week without clearing the Inbox...you'd might as well have fallen off the face of the earth to anyone trying to reach you.

On the other hand, I completely gave up the discipline of deleting emails. Other than the obvious ones that I don't even open--special offers I'm not interested in, lists I joined and haven't bothered to unjoin and other random junk that I don't have time to read, I pretty much just left everything in my Inbox.

I kept thinking that I would go back and organize them--you know, save important things in well labeled folders and delete the ones I now realize I didn't need to save. The trouble is that every day this task becomes more and more daunting, because the number of emails to sift through grows and grows and grows.

This has been on my invisible to-do list for years (you know the one you have running in the back of your mind that if you ever get a big chunk of time to do something you should probably work on?). Do you want to know how many emails I've been hoarding? I'm not sure I can tell you. It's kind of like divulging your weight, only most people can't really guess just by looking at me.

17,000

Apparently that's a big number. The guy at the Apple Store flat out called me an email hoarder. To my face. That's when I realized that I do have a problem.

At first I fished for excuses..."I know, I really need to go through them because there might be something important in there."

"Don't you think you could safely delete everything prior to say, 2005?" he politely asks.

"There's no way I have emails from before 2005..." I stammer.

"Let's check," he innocently suggests.

Yeah, my problem goes back all the way to 2001. Do the math--that's 10 YEARS of email hoarding gone unchecked. Seriously. This is embarrassing.

"Maybe I just need to delete them all and start fresh," I say hopefully.

"That's a great idea," he affirms.

"But what if I die? Wouldn't someone want to comb my emails for all of the wonderful things I've written and had written to me?," I'm grasping.

"If you die, I'm sure the first thing your family will do is read through 10 years of junk mail that you never deleted," he says, not unkindly.

"But some of them contain addresses, you know for those Christmas cards that I haven't sent in 5 years," I defend gallantly. Then I realize that in 10 years, that person has probably moved 3 times.

I want you to know that I came home and deleted them all. I didn't even look them over first. There was probably something very important in there that I will be screwed without. My life may end without a trace of evidence that people loved me enough to send me email. But my invisible to-do list just got shorter. I'm feeling a little lighter now.

I'm sorry if you ask me for information that I no longer have. I really don't think there was any other way. I am committed now to clean out my Inbox daily so that this never happens again. Feel free to ask me how it's going. I'm sure I can use the accountability. (A 10 year old habit may be hard to change.)

The truth hurts, but the truth can also set you free. On to my real to-do list now...

Why I May Never Move Out--My 1st top 10 list

Lest you think my stories about crazy people mean that I am dying to get out of this place, I wanted to shed some positive light on our living situation. You may already know that we live here rent-free, which is an obvious benefit. I mean, things would have to be pretty darn bad, or our financial situation would have to miraculously change in order for us to even think about moving. Plus, I told Bo when we moved here that I'm not moving again unless we can afford movers. I happen to know that we can't afford movers yet, so I'm setting down roots.

However, I happen to find apartment living desirable for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with the fact that it's free for us (though not really free since I have to earn my keep).

Here's my top 10 list of reasons to like apartment living:

1. It's cheaper than a house. Even if you don't get free rent, apartment living is definitely cheaper. At first, it might seem comparable since some fancy places do charge an arm and a leg, but once you consider utility costs, apartments win hands down. Our highest gas bill last winter (which runs our heat) was $42. That's just ridiculous. If our electric bill is $100 we have a heart attack.

2. It's greener. The other great part about low utility costs is that it also means we are not consuming as many natural resources as when we heated & cooled a house. This gave me great consolation in the early days before I lobbied for a recycling service (no recycling would be a huge down side of apartment living for me, but being the manager means I can fix that!).

3. Noise. It's not a lot of noise, but enough to know that people live around me. Our apartments are very quiet, but I can still hear my neighbor come home and the guys downstairs playing video games. I'm not quite sure why I like it. Maybe it assuages my guilt that we are super noisy so I like it when I can hear other people too. Maybe it just makes me feel not alone in a world of isolation.

4. Bumping into neighbors. We don't exactly have the most social of atmospheres (we don't have a club house or any gathering place, plus there is a wide range of people who live here it's not like there is some kind of affinity group sprouting up), however, I like seeing people in the hallways or in the parking lot or at the mailboxes. Since I know everyone I always say hello and get all nosey about their business. This would probably be true of me wherever we lived, but when people in a neighborhood can drive directly into their attached garage it's harder for me to corner them.

5. Forced simplicity. I am part slob (from my dad), and part hoarder (from my mom). I should say that's whom I would be in my most natural state. I used to have a really hard time getting rid of things, but living in 1000 square feet while trying to maintain some semblance of family order, purging is a skill that I have developed for survival. Also, my office used to be the absolute pit of our house--the dumping ground for everything I didn't know what to do with. Now my office is part of our kitche-offi-dini-living room. I have had to learn to organize paper and not let piles run rampant. Since we have less stuff, my inner slob has less to mess up.

6. Less cleaning. I've finally come to terms with the fact that I will never be a clean freak. I might as well just admit it and stop beating myself up all the time. The beauty of apartment living is that when I do finally suck it up and clean the place (never all at once--I could never be that focussed), it really doesn't take that long. I can vacuum every room without moving the cord for crying out loud. How hard can it be? (It still is kind of hard because I would really rather do just about anything than actually clean.)

7. No maintenance or yard work. When something breaks, I don't have to stress out about coming up with the money to fix it. Now, in my situation I do have to make sure it all gets done and I do plant flowers and rake leaves from time to time, but for the most part we do not have to factor yard work into our family equation. If we're still here when the kids get old enough to start mowing, I envision hiring them to do it so that they will learn how and have some responsibility, but if they decide to get a job doing something else, so be it.

8. I never have to throw out left overs. Furnace filter day is when I get to spy on all of my neighbors and see what goes on behind all those closed doors. What I've discovered is that some people live even more simply than we do. Way more simply. In fact, you don't really need much of anything to live as it turns out. Some people don't even have food. I don't go peeking in cupboards or anything, but you can tell by the trash bin overflowing with take-out containers that there is nothing like cooking going on in that kitchen. I don't offer my left overs to just anyone, but when I know that someone never eats a home cooked meal, they don't turn me down.

9. When borrowing the proverbial cup of sugar I don't even have to put on shoes. Once in awhile I start a batch of cookies without realizing that Bo ate the last egg that morning for breakfast. Nothing like stepping out into the hall and having any number of neighbors to hit up for a favor. I love it when someone asks me for things too. I mean, they all ask me for apartment manager kinds of things, but when they ask for sugar you know they just think of you as a neighbor.

10. Forced togetherness. There is no place to run. No place to hide. We are all together. All the time. Some might include this on the list of downsides, and surely some days it is, however, I have come to love the chaos of cooking dinner amongst the hubbub of the daily wrestling match and the fact that we have one TV to fight over and the times when I have to run into the bedroom to find a quiet place to have a professional phone conversation about the benefits of our apartments when a perspective resident calls. We basically have one room. No basement or family room. It's just us, hanging out together in the kitche-offi-dini-livingroom. The boys share a bedroom, which is...you know, terrible some days and fabulous that one time when they played in there for hours without arguing. In the end though I think there's something to be said about closeness creating.....closeness.

These are a few of my favorite things about apartment living. I sometimes wonder if we will bail the minute we can afford to or if we will continue to choose this lifestyle. Right now we might as well choose to like it because it's definitely working for us. I know that there are things I may never have learned without this season of life so I'm thankful.