I can’t believe I didn’t post this! It wasn’t until my brother mentioned his desire to post about it that I remembered. So I’m beating him to the punch.

I went to church on Christmas Eve morning (it always seems like such a good idea. Then once the service starts I find myself in deep regret) with the aforementioned brother. When we went out to the parking lot after, we (OK, Mark) discovered this exact tableau on the asphalt:

In case you can’t read the fine print, the text on the kazoo reads “Jesus Loves Me.” And yes, that is a yellow condom.

It’s been one month and one day since my last post, and in that meantime I briefly entertained the thought of making some sort of anniversary post, since I began this blog on December 4, 2005. One year ago I was far more engaged with religiosity and was happy to be so, and now, I’m not. I definitely feel more relaxed now that I, once again, have quit church and the accompanying Bible study, though I miss seeing the people. (Sometimes. Sometimes I go to the parties and the social events and I feel vaguely uncomfortable in the soirée’s unavoidable churchy quality. The formality masked with a ironed-khaki casual veneer, the minced words and carbonated beverages.)

Last night Steve said I should blog more and he’s right, perhaps, but all the religion-related stuff I want to blog about I can’t because it’s all about actual people and actual people’s behaviour. I don’t have much to say in the ethereal academic realm, in the esoteric theoretical realm. It’s all about the stupid things that stupid people do (and the not so stupid, they’re not all stupid) and I don’t really want to throw that up on the internets for all to see. It’s not fair or ethical. (See, the non-religious have ethics too, believe it or not.)

Steve also said I should blog about stuff other than religiony things and again he might be right.

Regardless, I suppose today, scant days before Christmas, I’ll reflect a bit on that holiday. I’m actually considering going to church this Sunday for two reasons — to hand out some cards and sing the relevant songs. Singing is basically the only part of church I actually like. I like singing so much that I can enjoy singing pretty much any songs regardless of their style or content, though in the latter case I suppose it’s not as true. I do get worn down by all the androcentric language pervasive in most Christian musical worship, but since I’m not going regularly I guess I can handle it.

(That reminds me — props to Bonnie & Dylan, old Bible school friends whom I visited earlier this month, for keeping their song choices gender-neutral for the meeting of their church plant, which meets at their house, when I was in town. That was very thoughtful.)

Anyhow, I love Christmas, and even, I think, the religious aspects. I mean, to me the birth of every baby is a miracle so it’s hard not to drum up wonderous feelings when presented with the nativity tale. My favourite Christmas songs are all religious ones (”O Holy Night,” “What Child is This?”), and as I said, church seems far more palatable at Christmas time.

I like buying/making presents for my family and close friends; I like eating chocolate; I like spending time with friends who are back in town for the holidays, as I did last night. I love the snow, the winter night skies, and driving home from church on Christmas Eve. When we get home we’ll eat too-rich foods and open presents, ’cause we’re German and that’s the way we do things. Then we’ll sleep in on Christmas morning and open our stockings around noon, eat some chocolates for breakfast and get ready for a fancy meal later in the day.

You can’t go wrong with this stuff.

If you’re reading this, I wish you only the best things for the holidays. For real.

xo

I have a complicated relationship with this holiday. It began simply enough, with trick-or-treating country-style while we lived at a rural parsonage. The Halloween of my kindergarten year was marked by my dressing in a cat costume and piling into a car with some other church kids (One of whom, Becky, was dressed as a bag of garbage if I recall correctly and I sincerely doubt that I do) and driving around the range roads of northern Alberta where each farmyard would net us a full-size chocolate bar or several tasty Kool-Aid-infused popcorn balls.

We moved to a city the next year and I still trick-or-treated, but in the urban fashion, i.e. on foot. I was a (pink) rabbit.

But then, things changed. I don’t know what the impetus was, but my parents converted to the school of thought that Christians ought not celebrate Halloween in any manner, least of all gallavanting around the neighbourhood ringing doorbells. In later years, my mother explained to me that Halloween was quite a get for the devil: “It’s the two things kids love best: dressing up, and candy!”

To be fair, my brother and I did still get the candy; half an ice-cream pail each, not a bad haul for not having to leave the basement. Which is where we hung out, every Halloween, with all the upstairs lights turned out so as not to alert any trick-or-treaters to our residence. All the upstairs lights, that is, except one: the oven light, the door left ajar so it cast a ghoulish blue glow over the kitchen (but not down the hallway, where I skittered on my way to the bathroom only the most desperate of pee-breaks). And that, of course, was the most cutting irony. On the night in question, we the family who didn’t celebrate Halloween, had the creepiest house on the block.

I did have a few opportunities to dress up during my elementary years, even after the trick-or-treating ban. There was occasionally an alterna-Halloween party at the church, where costumes and candy were permitted but any mention of pumpkins or witches was not. One year I was a princess in a blue gown with a sparkly cape that was continually choking me as other party-goers stepped on it. Another year I was (and how’s this for Evangelical cred?) an Israellite. In a pink-and-white striped robe and matching headdress. Probably the less said about that, the better.

My parents’ aversion to Halloween was so instilled in me that even once I was ostensibly able to make my own decisions about celebrating the holiday I still responded to it with an overwhelming “meh.” Only in the past few years have I begun to tentatively embrace it. Because mom was right: if there’s two things kids like, it’s costumes and candy. And since I still think of myself as a kid, there are two things I like: costumes and candy.

This year I celebrated with a Saturday-night dance party. I went as Olive Hoover from the movie Little Miss Sunshine and had a great time. I have also eaten massive amounts of candy, which has now formed an extra layer of protective padding around my belly.

I’m not entirely unsympathetic to my mom’s plight. Christian culture does a lot to demonize (ha) anything remotely pagan. In the face of peer and liturgical pressure, what’s a believing parent to do? I don’t know. I do wish they had just let us go trick-or-treating. I know I felt pretty awkward and generally dreaded the end of October, especially since we’d usually get pulled out of school for the afternoon of Halloween when there was usually an assembly and whatnot. I mean, most kids don’t mind staying home from school, but on the funnest day of the year? That’s just mean.

Is shutting your kid away from Halloween festivities really going to shield them from the “evils” of paganism? Christmas has deep pagan roots, but you don’t see any Christians boycotting its celebration (for obvious reasons, but it seems kinda double-standardy). Is the adrenaline rush of a kid-friendly “haunted house” constructed in the gymnasium of an elementary school really going to throw a Christian worldview into question, our counteract some fundamental tenet?

Like I said, I don’t know, and in the end all parents are just trying to do the best they can, whether they’re Christian or Pagan. All I know is, I have a lot of Halloweening to make up for, so I’m already thinking about next year’s costume…

Today is the day we remember the day our Lord Jesus Christ died a terrible death. I personally remembered it by sleeping ’til 1 p.m. And I didn’t even do anything naughty on Bad Thursday night! It’s for the best. Some friends of mine, aging hipsters all, spent a truncated and despondent evening at Mod Night, surrounded by underclothed, eighteen-year-old, Fabu-Tanned flesh.

As evidenced by my behaviour, I’m still not much for church services these days. Especially not for Good Friday services, which are typically too bizarre for my taste. (I mean, bizarre is usually my cut of tea, as they say, but in this case it’s not the good kind of bizarre.) I will go to the service on Sunday like any good tourist, of course, then gorge myself on candy and roast leg of lamb of God.*

My mood has been greatly ameliorated, however, by the emergence of spring in our northern clime. There’s always this day in spring when you get up in the morning and leave the house and are all, “Woah, where did all these people come from?!” Everyone’s outside these days, even me. It’s nice.

What else is new? The new Geez is out. If you check the letters section there’s a little quotation from this very blog! Used with permission, don’t worry.

In other thrilling events, Tony Jones commented on my blog. Tony, the next time I’m in the Twin Cities I will not buy you coffee — I will buy you beer, and perhaps make a donation to the Tony Jones Beer Fund.

*One of two tasteless jokes in this entry. Can you find the other?!

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