I love Christmas music! Once it hit December 1st and our digital cable box had the Christmas music channels turned on I was all set. Working from home has it's perks. You can sing out loud all day and no one says a thing! Until your 7 year old gets home and joins in. He loves all things Christmas.
Until he hears his Mama signing things like "The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head." or "Joy to the world! the Lord has come" or "Christ the Savior is born;" or "God rest you merry, gentlemen"
You see our family (Hilary, Liam and I) is atheist. But we do jump on the bandwagon for a lot of the Christian celebrations! Of course we celebrate the secular parts of the holidays. We give gifts, we put up a tree, we believe in Santa Claus, we celebrate family. Now that Liam is 7 though, a lot of the harder questions are coming up. Like why his Mama keeps signing about God and Jesus if she doesn't believe in them?
Good question little man.
Trying to explain it to an atheist 7 year old is tough when I'm not really sure I understand the answers myself. I grew up in a Catholic household - I was christened, had my first communion and my confirmation. We celebrated both the religious and the non-religous sides of Christmas. I have long since left both the church and any beliefs I may have had behind. But somethings are just so ingrained. Like Christmas carols!
For now I'll just keep singing! And one day Liam will figure out the the nightly lullaby that I've sung to him since he was born is actually a religious Christmas carol. Good thing it's in French and he's not bilingual!
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My husband and I went and saw Tim Minchin the other night who has a song about this very thing. It's a very Australian idea of Christmas, but it does a great job of explaining the non-Christian love of Christmas - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0s68-GLGWY
It's also an awesome song. By the way, Tim Minchin is also an atheist. We're vaguely pagan, but also lovers of Christmas carols.
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