Repeat Week- I Bet This Will Offend Someone

It’s day four of repeat week! Today, our focus will be drawn to my firstborn; the individual who made me a mother. Or a sleep-deprived, worry-addled zombie. Depending on how he’s behaving in a particular day…

And let me bring you up to speed on the interactions K and I have…

Mithras, in the flesh...er...stone. Photo Source

Thursday, December 9, 2010

I bet this will offend someone

Since I seem to be on a snarky roll as of late, I thought I would share with you a little convo I had with the first son about the holidays and religion. Please, feel free to send me hate mail; I likely deserve it since I appear to be subverting my children’s spiritual life.

K: So, why do we celebrate Christ’s birthday if he was, in fact, born six months after John the Baptist, and John was born in October?

Me: Well, because it was an effort by the early church to incorporate those multi-theistic pagans by hosting the birth of Christ on a holiday they recognized—Saturnalia. 

K: Well, why was that holiday on December 25th?

Me: Well, to celebrate the birth of Mithra, of course.

K: Who’s Mithra? 

Me: Oh, he was very popular in the Roman legions. He’s a Sanskrit god who was first recorded about 1400 hundred years before Christ. Plus, he had a lot of similarities with Christ.

K: Like what?

Me: Well, um, primarily, being the only son of a god, and then being crucified and resurrected, and there is the whole last supper/ banquet thing…

K: You’re an academiac, you know that?

Me: *SIGH* Yeah, I know.

K: Is this why we don’t go to church or mass?

Me: No, we don’t go to church or mass because when I was about your brother’s age, they asked your Nana not to bring me back to Sunday school. I don’t know if that means I was banned for life.

Does it count that the planned conversation in my mind was to, in fact, discuss the true meaning of the season, as opposed to the overwhelming desire on my son’s part to receive a go cart for Christmas?

Parenting fail.