I am healed!

Thanks to all for the good-health wishes and recipes. Here's a weird thing: even though I skipped my nap yesterday so I could read this splendid comic, stayed up past 2 AM last night reading more stuff, and was awakened promptly at 8 this morning by a bouncy and chipper 4-year-old all excited about having a home day with just me--even with all that abuse to my system--my cold is better! I can breathe! I'm only coughing a little! My ears are popping regularly! It's the miracle of Chanukah!

Oh, wait, Chanukah's over. Thank goodness. I mean, eight days? By the end we were getting a little blase blase' jaded: All right, light the candles, open your presents, and let's go brush your teeth. Our weekday evening schedule is tight enough as it is; with Chanukah thrown into the mix, Mermaid Girl didn't have a bath for over a week, and was still getting into bed on the far side of nine most nights. I did feel a small twinge the first night after it was over, though: no more candles. At least, no more Chaunkah candles; there's still the tree.

The Girl is now puttering around in her room, moving each obect in it to a new and different place, under cover of "getting dressed." And I'm letting her, because what's a home day for? Also, all these bloggable thoughts have been swirling around my head.

Like this little doozy: What is the true meaning of Christmas? And what should we tell our kid about it?

Several other bloggers have been dealing with and writing about this issue, and I've been reading with a lot of interest, between attempts at repairing my own botched explanation of the holiday.

Yesterday, as we watched the credits of RW's prized vintage video of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" (the cartoon original, with Boris Karloff, not the travesty of a remake), I asked Mermaid Girl diagnostically (and somewhat pedantically): "So, did the Whos need presents and trees and food to have Christmas?"

"Yes!"

Okay. So developmentally maybe she's not quite there yet. For her, the happy ending to that story is that the Whos got all their stuff back. Fine. Take another tack.

"Hey, bun, you know that story we talked about before, about Christmas, about that mom and the baby and the speck and all that?"

"Yeah." (Somewhat guarded: is Mommy about to lose it and start sputtering again?)

"And you know how we don't believe it? And Mama doesn't either?"

"Yeah."

"Well, lots of people who don't believe that story, like Mama, still celebrate Christmas. For a lot of people, like for the Whos, Christmas isn't really about that story. It's about thinking of other people, and being with people they love, and having lights in the dark winter times, and warm things when it's cold out."

"Mommy?"

"Yes, hon?"

"Can I watch another video?"

But I am waiting for the inevitable question from our 40-pound litigator: If Christmas isn't about the little baby Jesus, how come it can't be a Jewish holiday?

What on earth am I going to say?