Pictures, which I AM legally allowed to use!

You know, WalMart / Target will usually print any digital pictures you send them, but sometimes they get persnickety about "professional" prints. Anyway, this picture WAS purchased in digital format from Sears by my mother!

Merry Christmas! (not "Happy Holidays")

Merry Christmas everyone! Not "happy holidays" - as Brad Stein says, "there are a bunch of holidays in February too, but no one says 'happy holidays' - they call it what it is! 2000 years later, Jesus is still intimidating people". :)

I'm really on an acapella (Firefox doesn't seem to know that word) Christmas music kick this year. I've been listening a lot to some slightly older stuff from

Manhattan Transfer who also has a new CD out (well it came out last year, but I just got it this year) and Rockapella (another Rockapella CD)

There are a few new Christmas CDs out which I've enjoyed a good bit. Christmas music is about the only music I buy any more. When I buy it from ITunes or import it into my music library, I always make it a point to change the genre to "Christmas" since it seems to always come in as "holiday" :)

OK, I don't know why, but Blogger has an "Edit Html" pane, but it hijacks anything you do (sort of like Microsoft but much worse). If you want to not allow HTML editing, don't. Offering this half-baked solution is completely bogus.

Anyway, scroll waaaaayyyy down for the rest of this post.

	This is my favorite new CD this year - it's also where the Brad Stein quote above comes from.
	This is the best of the "various artists" offerings of 2007 IMO.
	There's a really awesome song on here "Quiet Christmas Night" - probably my favorite new Christmas song of the year. The other 2 tracks are all right, but not as good as Jaci's Christmas CD from a couple years back.
	This band's pretty good for a Disney band. They are Christians, but the songs on their other CDs is not written from a Christian world-view. This CD's quite good, though.
	I enjoyed this CD, but there's really not much Michael W Smith on it - it's more orchestra and choir.
	I am actually a little ashamed of Relient K for releasing this CD - since almost all of it is exactly the same tracks as their "Deck the Halls Bruise Your Hand" CD. I should have just bought the tracks that were different - but if you don't have the other CD, buy this one.
	This CD has some awesome tracks, although there was 1 I really didn't like at all because it was a bit raunchy. Maybe they think they made up for it by reading from Luke 2 on another track?

This One's For Bernie

If you were at MO 5 or more years ago, and involved in Children's Ministry, you knew Bernie. Why I'm talking about him today involves one of his controversial practices...

Breaking news to the 5th graders

that

there

was

no

Santa Claus.

Why am I remembering Bernie today?
Yesterday Mr. Clean came home from school and told me I had to mail a letter to the fictitious man. I told him I wasn't going to do it. He told me that it was an assignment and was very, very distressed that I said there was no Santa Claus when his teacher had told them all about seeing a reindeer with a red nose in the sky and that it was Santa practicing.
So it was a parents vs. teacher evening, and quite frankly, in his eyes, the teacher wins. I don't blame him really, because he is on his best behavior at school (he received the responsibility award 1st semester) and he is not at home - so he gets consistently good feedback from her and both kinds from me.
I got emotionally involved because it drives me INSANE how the public school system says that they can not teach anything about Jesus, or the reason why Christmas STARTED or even really why it's called CHRISTmas without the ACLU closing in. But their employee can work on instilling a faith in a fat man who breaks into your house while you're sleeping.
I really have nothing against St. Nick himself. I enjoyed the fantasy as a kid, but I'm a literalist and always have been. Tell me the whole truth and nothing but the truth or I'll feel betrayed. I promised myself that my kids would always know the truth about Santa Claus, negative numbers and ellipses. (Yes, I remember finding out that what I had been taught to believe was wrong about each of these things and wondered why the adults couldn't have just told me the truth from the beginning). There's a magic to the Santa Claus story.

BUT

If you can't teach faith in the public school -
DON'T teach my children faith in a myth that is currently about getting more stuff when our world is consumerist enough already.

I guess I should use my soapbox to dismount from my high horse. Daddy had to help me with what to write for the teacher.

Mr. Clean - there IS NO Santa Claus. There WAS a Christian Saint where this all started - but no fat man will be bringing you Thomas trains this Christmas. There are grown ups who love to give presents in secret - and that's a good memorial to Saint Nicolas. I wish you could believe me instead of her.

Maybe Daddy will chime in with his moderated thoughts about my emotions so you can get his side.