Secret Santas and Forgiveness

Last Christmas was a rather depressing financial low point for us. We just couldn't do much in the way of presents or festivities. I was so depressed I put up the tree and left it bare. The kids scrounged together some decorations. It got to the point where the financial stress was giving me chest pains. 

By March we decided it was time to turn over a new leaf, get our finances in order, and pay off our credit cards. We made a strict budget for the rest of the year and every time I paid a bill on time, paid off a credit card, or said no to something not in the budget, my stress level diminished. In less than a week the chest pains were gone and haven't come back. 

In order to do this we had to use the phrase "we can't afford that right now" a lot with our kids. We didn't have big birthday parties, didn't go for long drives, and ate at home more. It wasn't completely awful. We didn't eat Top Ramen every night. We just thought, "do I want this thing more than I want to get out of debt and not be stressed all the time about money." The answer to that question was usually a big, "no."

The year has actually been a good one financially. We significantly reduced our debt, still managed to send the kids to camp in the summer, and I worked from home this fall to bring in some extra income in part because I wanted to be able to give at Christmas. I didn't want a repeat of last year's depression. 

Apparently, neither did my responsible and sensitive E. She remembered the rough time last year and the tight budget we've been keeping this year and was worried about Christmas. So, she signed her sisters and herself up for the Secret Santa program through a sort of teen community center where she goes for rock climbing. It was months ago, and she didn't ask or tell me because she wanted it to be a surprise. 

I was surprised all right! Because of last year, I had decided I needed to stop trying to stretch so far and take care of my kids first. I did feel their concern and it was painful to me. In addition, it's the thinking of each person in the family, and putting together a gift just for them, that lifts my spirits and gets me going this season. Giving is definitely my primary love language.  But my budget is still quite limited, and I'm paying closer attention to it, so this is the first year that I didn't go pull Secret Santa tags off one of the many trees about town to buy gifts for local families in need. We've given to the community in other ways, because I think that's an important part of Christmas, but not in this particular way. 

Tonight, E came back from rock climbing with an enormous bag over her shoulder.  I want to laugh at the irony, cry at the generosity of our community, and blush with embarrassment as she added those gifts to the heap already under our tree. 

My pride reacted with an immediate desire to send these gifts back or pass them on to other families who may need them more. I managed to restrain that reaction. What's more important to me, is to honor her concern and her effort to make sure her sisters got good presents this year. She was very proud of herself and told me that they (at the center) encouraged her to sign up because they needed a few more kids to sign up in order to have enough to be a participating agency. So other kids might not have been able to if she hadn't too. 

This isn't the first time we've benefitted from a community program. There were some lean years getting started as a family, and some more when we were taking care of my father-in-law while he was dying of cancer. There's no way to ever repay those who give. Nor a polite way to refuse now. Only gratitude, and the knowledge that we weren't the first young people to need a little extra help, things won't always be so tight, and we will have many opportunities to pay it forward. 

As 'crazy situations your Tweens get you into' go, this isn't so bad. Her heart for her family is precious. It's a good reminder that our kids are paying attention, and they worry about us too. None of us will get our kids through to adulthood without making a few mistakes. Usually without even realizing it. 

We think a lot about giving at Christmas. The wise men gave gifts to the baby Jesus. Jesus himself was a gift from God. Not just to be a good teacher and educate us about how to live. He came to die as the means to a more important gift, the gift of forgiveness. That whatever sin separated a person from God could be forgiven, as though it had never happened. 

A physical gift is not just a physical gift. It embodies the thoughts we have toward one another. It's difficult to give a thoughtful gift to someone you haven't forgiven. An impersonal gift without any effort or thought can actually feel offensive if the recipient speaks in the love language of gifts. A gift need not be expensive. But the giver should be aware that they're communicating something. 

This year, as I prepare to give good gifts to my family, I'd like to think of each one as renewal of forgiveness. A laying aside of anything and everything that may have happened over the past year, a sweeping aside of any offense that may separate us. A promise that between family we forgive even before an offense occurs, because we know that they are inevitable. That the love we have for each other is greater than any possible offense. That this love will cover our failures as parents. On a larger scale, that the love of our community extends, even to a worried 12 year old, without conditions. 

Proverbs 10:12 (NKJV) says, "Love covers all sins." The first gift of Christmas was forgiveness. Let's attach it to every gift like a bow, and pass it on. 

Note: My comments about love languages on this blog refer to the book "The Five Love Languages," by Gary Chapman. An excellent resource, that articulates how we all communicate love differently, and how to understand each other better. 

Have you laughed today?

Did you take a multi vitamin today? Exercise? Drink eight glasses of water? Those things are all okay, but laughter is the best medicine. 

When your life is nothing to laugh about, that's when you need to more than ever.

When you can't change a thing, laugh at it. Because you can change yourself.

The worst that can happen is death, and that's not so bad if you think about it.

With more Americans than ever suffering from depression, we should find a way to laugh every day, just to make sure we're okay.

If you manage to live long, laugh lines look better in old age than worry lines.

Laugh until you cry if you can. It's good for your eyes.

Laugh with your children. It sets a good precedent.

Laugh at yourself. You'll never get in trouble for it, and it might get you out of trouble.

Laugh from your belly. Deep deep laughter changes your biochemistry.

Don't hide your laughter. It's contagious. If you're lucky, a good outbreak will come back to reinfect you again and again.

Without laughter, the tedium of an opulent life can become unbearable. With it, even the homeless can embrace a new day.

I don't envy the lifestyles of others, nor curse my own. There are happy people at every economic level. And miserable ones.

I envy those I see laughing in hospitals, at funerals, alongside the disabled, in their moments of personal failure, when others would call it inappropriate. They know the secret of life.

The brain shuts down under stress and blocks out bad memories. But good ones take up permanent residence in our minds, no matter how scarce.

I think lives are accounted in laughter. In the hours that we smile. In the joy we give to others.

I wonder how mine adds up.

Existential depression is a real and common problem for intellectually gifted people. I've wondered why humans bother to keep living. I've thoughtfully considered the reasons that keep me from driving to a bridge and jumping off. I've driven down the road enumerating the reasons that I should go home and not just keep driving until I run out of gas somewhere. When I go too long without humor, when I get hung up on painful repetitive thoughts about my life, when I get tired to the core of my being. I know it's time to start laughing again...by force if necessary.

To be clear, my life isn't that bad, so I know those thoughts are unreasonable and probably generated by hormonal imbalances. Hormones can affect our behavior, but changing our behavior can also affect our hormones.

I might be crazy. I can't afford the psychologist bills to find out for sure, much less their pharmacological solutions. I pay for Netflix and high speed internet, so I can turn on a standup comic until I start laughing again. I force myself to be a hugger. I surf comedy web sites. I force myself out of my hole and back into the realm of the living. It's worked so far. I laughed again today.

Parenting isn't easy. Marriage isn't easy. Life isn't easy. But if you can laugh every day, it's not as hard.

I suspect my experience is not as uncommon as it feels from the inside. If you're having trouble finding a reason to go home, if you go for days without laughing, if you're worried that you're suffering from depression but not sure it's serious or can't afford to find out for sure, you can start to help yourself by taking your laughter seriously. I can't give medical advice, and doctors will tell you to seek professional help right away. I don't disagree, but I know very well that it's not always possible. But laughter is not the exclusive provenance of doctors. You can always take more. There's no risk of overdose.

Ask your spouse or close friend to keep track if you've laughed every day. Don't keep your struggles to yourself. Then, go out and deliberately look for what's funny. Try to get it in as early as you can in your day. Notice how it affects you overall. Put funny pictures on your desktop, and in your screensaver, and by your mirrors. Let your kids draw funny pictures on your windows with dry erase markers. (Those always make me smile and are easy to wipe clean and change.) Set an hourly timer on your phone with an outrageous ringtone that will catch everyone's attention and make them laugh so you can catch their laughter. (I set my text tone to a Wilhelm scream because I get a lot of texts.) Before long that tone will make you laugh even when no one is around.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a cheap one, and simple to implement. It may not be easy at first, but nothing worthwhile ever is. If you still find yourself thinking of ways to end your life, if you think them out all the way through, tell someone immediately. If they don't take it seriously, tell another someone. If you have no one to tell you can call the suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Depression is not your fault. It happens to people in every area of society. It can't hurt your plans to put it off for one more day and try reaching out to someone.

If you've never had a problem with depression, laugh more anyway. It's good for your heart, and you never know who might be sitting near you that needs it.

Too Smart for Santa

What do you do when your kids figure out the Santa scam?

Yup, that's what they'll call it, a scam. They've been lied to, and they want to know why, and what you're gonna do about it! Some little smarty pants figure it out terribly, unfairly early. We don't get to play pretend with them nearly long enough. Then, they're the kid at school telling all the other kids, and you get emails from the teacher and calls from angry parents.

"How could you ruin their delusion? This is Kindergarten! Could you please stop your child from telling the other kids that there is no Santa Claus?" Yes, I got those calls.

The problem is, I don't care to lie to my kids. When they asked about Santa, they got a history lesson. When they asked about Frosty, they got a pop culture lesson. When they asked about baby Jesus they got a Bible lesson. They know Dec. 25th isn't his real birthday and why the church decided to celebrate at that particular time anyway. And they know Santa Claus was a real saint, with a real purpose, then a story, then an advertising campaign, and now...

Now I remind them that they're always trying to get adults to play pretend with them, and that this is the one time of year that most every adult is willing to play pretend with all the kids. Why? Because Santa represents an ideal of generosity, a spirit of joy in giving.

The real Saint Nicholas was originally depicted as a man of sorrow. He grieved for children living in poverty. That we can see him today as a man of joy is indicative of how the world has changed. Today's poverty is not what St. Nicholas faced. We don't send our poor to slave away in work houses and die early. We don't, on the whole, blame poverty on the poor and heap additional punishments on them. Poverty is still a real problem, but most of us are looking for opportunities to change that.

While there is no magical Santa delivering presents around the world in his sleigh, there are still presents under even the poorest trees. Because all of us are inspired by his example, we carry on his work wherever we see the need. Whether it's Project Angel Tree sending gifts to the children of incarcerated prisoners, Samaritan's Purse sending shoe box gifts to poor children in nations around the world, or your local Salvation Army meeting needs in your own neighborhood, there are many widely supported organizations doing the work this saint inspired. Even when money is scarce, we get resourceful to make sure our kids have a Merry Christmas.

We make sure they learn to participate in the giving side as well, from dropping change in Salvation Army buckets as toddlers (I never spend my change in December so they have something to give whenever we see a bucket), to putting together gifts for an orphanage in India, to serving the homeless as they get older. Giving is one of the languages of love. We experience love by receiving, and express it by giving. There's always room in the world for more love.

The Santa scam persists, not because we want to deceive to our children, but because we want them to feel there is love in the world without condition. (We tell them they have to be good, but really, our standards aren't that high.) We want to give them this experience early so they can eventually express love in equal measure.

This time of year, a lot of people complain about American materialistic excess, and capitalistic greed. I would argue that we are the most generous nation on earth. That our poverty is still wealth, compared to most of the world. Even at our poorest, we found ways to give. And that ability to give when we have little, that is wealth. Christmas, and Santa, bring that out in us. They pull us out of the dreary darkness of winter, the mundane middle of the school year, and make us rich in ways that our paychecks can't.

Now that all of my children know the truth about Santa, I've recruited them to the other side.  They're pretenders. They start calling me Mommy Claus this time of year, and ask to be my little elves. I like this better. We can all be Santa, Saints, taking care of widows and orphans, because that is the purest religion. That's what the grown up Jesus told people. He inspired Saint Nicholas, so why should there be any conflict between them? But that's another post, and one of those religious arguments I try to avoid.

I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season, and enjoying the preparations for Christmas as much as I am!

Mashing the Baby Food Myth

I went to a baby shower once and was mortified to hear the other mothers talking about how hard it was to feed their babies balanced meals of baby food and eight bottles of water a day, in addition to bottles of breastmilk they pumped at work, like they were miniature adults. These were tiny babies of 3-4 months. Where did their moms get the idea that babies should have the same diet as adults, just mashed up? Babies don't need baby food. I can't tell you the specific sources that contributed to this revelation because I read so many things, but at some point I realized that there is no biological reason for the baby food aisle to exist.

Breastmilk is complete nutrition for babies. No buts. In fact, if you supplement with other foods, you will be giving your baby less nutrition and their feeling of fullness will reduce their inclination to nurse, subsequently reducing your supply. It has all the nutrients, proteins, and all the water they need for six months.

What it doesn't have is much iron. Babies are born with enough in their systems to last about six months.  Then they need a little extra. This is the point when doctors offer supplements. I tend to think that supplements should be saved for when things are really wrong. If the drop in iron is normal, there must be a natural solution. Fortunately, this is also the point when their little pincher grasp develops, showing that they are ready to eat Cheerios and raisins cut in half. You cut the raisins in half because you don't want to see them come out the other end rehydrated. Mix them together in a Tupperware snack cup and keep it in the diaper bag for snacking. They won't need that much to bring their iron levels up. They have tiny little bodies.

Aside from that, eating in the first year is more about the sensory and social experiences. That scene with the baby being fed baby food in the high chair in the kitchen, before everyone else comes to dinner, should never happen. Sitting down with the family is essential to their social development. Bits of soft food from the table, or food cut small enough to prevent choking, provide new sensory experiences that help their oral sensitivity to taste and texture develop. Baby food, even home made baby food, doesn't really do this. They use their fingers to eat at first, then experiment with spoons. Babies can even be trained directly to regular cups at this point if someone helps them take sips of water. Since they should still be primarily breast feeding, there should be no nutritional concerns about whether they're getting enough of anything. And no pressure to finish what you prepare for them.

Gradually, what they eat at the table will increase, and the amount of breastmilk they take will decrease until a smooth transition off of the breast can be made. When I had to stop nursing my first at 18 months, before she was ready, the pain of engorgement was excruciating. When I transitioned my second at 18 months, she was already mostly done with me and I had no engorgement at all. The surgeon general recommends at least one year of breast feeding, but if you think of the cessation of breast feeding as a transition to regular food, it could be much later than that. You'll know when your baby is ready because their interest in breast feeding wanes and they can be easily distracted from it by the offer of other foods.

So, why does that baby food aisle exist? Because women with newborns are vulnerable to marketing. Especially any marketing that implies baby needs something. Because we don't understand our bodies well enough to be confident in our ability to nourish our own babies, they can wedge their marketing messages into the tiny cracks in our self confidence and pry them wide open. Remember that Nestlé convinced women in Africa that formula was superior to breastmilk, and their babies started dying from contaminates in the available water supply they used to mix it with. These companies don't care about infant nutrition. They care about sales. Balanced meals of organic non-gmo gluten free baby food, are still inferior nutrition to continued breastfeeding. Even though you know that, their commercials will make you cry. They've perfected their tactics. You might have to enlist your partner's support in helping you resist. They're not as hormonally involved.

Just because breastfeeding is natural, that doesn't mean it's always easy. Most women need some help getting started. That's not some freak change that has only occurred recently. Women five hundred years ago needed help too. They just got it from their mothers and grandmothers rather than from lactation specialists and nurses. It will absorb your life in the beginning, but what's a year given over to the maternal process?

Apparently, that is asking too much of most women. I would estimate that about ninety percent of the issues I've seen women have with breast feeding come down to stress over trying to be and do other things during that critical time in their child's development. American women are under way to much pressure to get back to "normal" after having a baby. Statistically, seventy percent of those who begin breast feeding will give up after six weeks, and ninety percent by three months. If it gets too hard there's always formula. The problem is that breastmilk is not just about nutrition.

Studies in the last decade suggest that emotional development begins in utero where the baby is exposed to the same hormones that the mother's emotional reactions to life flood her body with. That emotions, to some chemical extent, travel through the blood stream and cross the placenta. That a rich emotional environment in utero helps brain development. This continues through breast feeding, where those same hormones are present in the milk supply.

Any mother who has breastfed can tell you that if they're stressed, baby is stressed. If they're stimulated, baby is hyper. If mom can keep calm and happy, baby will be more calm and happy. Colic is self perpetuating in that it stresses mom out and begins a spiral of stressed milk, stressed baby, more stressed mom. Sometimes, she can break that cycle by stepping back and being intentional about calming herself for a prolonged period. But that takes time, and giving yourself over to that maternal process.

It can be hard. Really, really, really hard sometimes. And I would never want any woman to feel bad about giving up. I get it. I've spent a total of 5.5 years breast feeding my four daughters and I know the struggle. I know that I had a great deal more support to do so than many women have in our modern age. But I've heard women say, "why bother when they're going to be on baby food in six months?" I want women to understand that baby food is a modern marketing invention. They don't need to spend a fortune on it any more than they do formula. Their bodies are more than adequate. They were made to nourish their children for much longer than they probably think. And that the emotional symbiosis and physical connection are more important factors than they may realize.

Please don't feel bad about it if you were unable to breastfeed your children. We can only ever move forward. I think sometimes I only managed to continue out of sheer stubbornness. But I firmly believe that any woman can breastfeed if she gets the proper support. That providing that support should be important to all of us for public health reasons. That we need to give women in our society permission to just be moms for a full year if we want a physically and emotionally healthier population in the future.

We are rather unique among developed nations in the pressure we place on new moms to return to the normal life they had before giving birth. Having children changes us and we need time to define a new normal. More women, strong enough to resist the marketing that says products are as as good as parents, strong enough to speak out and say we need support and we need time and space to be mothers, will be the agents for this much needed change in our culture. I'm going to be one of them. Will you join me?

Honor vs. Insecurity

"There is one thing a man can always do, and that is his duty." - Mr. Knightly, Jane Austen's "Emma"

An honorable man will always choose his wife and children over his family of origin. But a confident woman would never make her husband cut off his first family.  She knows he draws strength from his roots.

An insecure woman wants a weak husband, so she uproots him and pots him in a place she can control. She uses manipulation to get what she wants because she doesn't trust his love for her. Often this stems from feelings of unworthiness. But her success doesn't satisfy her insecurity because she can't trust a man whom she can manipulate into cutting off his family, not to be manipulated by some future competitor into cutting her off.

Young men are drawn to insecure women because as long as she needs his affirmation she will make him feel important; feel strong. But he becomes insecure, worried about what she will do if he opposes her in any way. It's like the mythical call of the sirens that draws sailors from their ships only to be dashed against the rocks.

Like Odysseus' wife, a wise woman is not afraid to test her husband. She knows it is better to find out for certain in the beginning whether her heart can safely trust him. Then she can be the confident woman. Then she can have a genuinely strong husband.

She will not fear his connections to the past but nurture them. His whole family, and all who see, will honor her. Because she is an honorable woman.

From a broader cultural perspective, this is why men should support equality for women in every area. They should want a culture that raises strong confident women because strong confident partners will make them stronger too.

In the church, people excuse this exclusionary behavior towards family of origin with the verse that says "for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife." As if there is any acceptable Christian reason for completely rejecting anybody, much less your father and mother, whom you were first commanded to honor. The joining, or cleaving as it's called in other verses, is meant to be the central priority, not the only priority. The first responsibility, not the last. It is a very poor view of your partner's love to think that if anybody else gets some there won't be enough for you. If you have to hoard it, it's not going to be enough sustain you for the rest of your life.

From a biblical standpoint, a man becomes joined to his wife, they become one flesh, and therefore they have the same parents and the same siblings, inclusive of each family of origin. While they physically create space to build their own family, the requirement to honor is not suspended. Neither is the commandment to love your neighbor. If your siblings don't at least fall into that category, what are they? Enemies? You're commanded to love them too.

The problem is that it's easier to pick and choose our religious beliefs to excuse our neurosis rather than to overcome them. If we don't acknowledge our insecurities we can never be healed of them.

Whether or not you have religious motivation to seek restoration within your family relationships, consider doing it just because it will make you a better person. When we choose the hard thing, it strengthens us. We find out who we really are. When we acknowledge who we are, we can decide to become someone better, and actually figure out how to do it. When we become better people, we become better partners and better parents. We build genuine trust in our marriages. We don't pass on our dysfunctional attributes to our children.

When I made the choice to have children, my decision was heavily weighted by the idea of my future grandchildren, and all the fun I plan have with them. If I don't teach my kids how to reconcile, if I don't raise them to be secure confident women, I could lose that future happiness. If I don't model that behavior, how will they learn?

I had a personal anecdote to add, but it's still too painful. Suffice it to say, I understand exactly how difficult it is to do what I'm saying here. I know that many will read this and say, "but..." It's true that I don't know your family, and I don't know the experiences that have fed your insecurities. Our excuses don't change fundamental truths. The level of difficulty does not make the ideal of secure balanced partnerships, in which to raise children, any less important to strive toward. I know that we will try and fail repeatedly. It is my hope that we will never stop trying, no matter how much we fail.

Why Modern American Feminism has Failed Women

I believe that when you try to make women the economic equivalent of men, you actually devalue them. It's not that I don't think women should get equal pay for equal work. They should. But because we live in a free market economy, when women began entering the workplace in droves, the economy shifted. It then became necessary for women to go to work in order to raise a family at the same economic level that used to be achievable on a single income. Essentially, every worker took a pay cut because there was a surge of available workers.

Now, if a woman is working, who's looking after her family? The far more essential work of raising future generations has been farmed out to others who are paid less, and will never be the equivalent of a child's own mother. The fallout from the emotional disconnect that has resulted from the physical separation between children and their mothers is something we are only beginning to be able to comprehend.

Furthermore, the essential unpaid social work of women in our society is going undone. What once was a veritable army of stay at home wives, daughters, and mothers, has dwindled to a company of broke stragglers. We choose to stay home over financial security, and we accept the consequences, but what the army used to accomplish we no longer have the resources to do. Women doing what they were passionate about, rather than what they had to do to afford to live, accomplished incredible things. They brought about massive social change, they were the underpinnings of our educational institutions, they served the poor, and cared for the sick. They wove the fabric of civilization that is created through communication, compassion, and community.

Furthermore, they had the time resources to help the few single mothers that had to work to survive. All of the older women in my family have talked about how they helped care for the children of their single mom neighbors while they worked. Because the children were in their homes so much, the husbands of these generous women also became surrogate fathers to those children. No social institution can replace that kind of person to person caring for others. Half a dozen institutions working together can't replace that connection. Now we're outnumbered by single moms. How can we possibly support all of them? We can't.

When a woman is liberated from her socially applied identity as an economic unit, she becomes a force for good that has far more value to the world than the money she could make doing equal work for equal pay.

I keep a Hagar the Horrible comic strip on my desk in which Helga is raising her glass to a group of women with the toast, "One day men and women will be equal. Until then, let us celebrate our overwhelming superiority!" In order to embrace modern feminism I would have to think less of myself than I presently do, and less of women in general, and that's not okay with me.

In order to be equal to a man, in the economically based definition of modern feminists, I must be devalued. I would much rather achieve equality by raising men in our social responsibility based value system. By teaching our sons to do what is good and what is right for the world regardless of economic incentives. A man raised to that standard would never accept a pay differential based entirely on gender, race, or any other social divisor. He would never value profits over the welfare of his employees. He would never accept a government made of individuals whose loyalty he could buy.

We need to stop trying to lower ourselves to the standards of men, and begin to raise them to ours.

Halloween

Halloween comes around every year and I'm faced with the same dilemma.  How much of my energy do I want to put into celebrating a pagan holiday?

It is not worth my energy to protest it.  Nothing draws a kid's attention to something bad for them like a parent making a big deal out of avoiding it.  You may object to my characterizing Halloween as bad for children, but my dad was a police officer, and cops dread Halloween.  It brings out the crazies.  With more adults celebrating than ever, it's also becoming another nightmare of drunk driving incidents.

When I was a kid we carved a pumpkin, had a little class party at school, and went trick or treating in our immediate neighborhood.  That was it.  A few odd people decorated their houses and threw parties.  Haunted houses were corny on purpose and, being a good Christian family, we avoided them.

Then we moved from our little island in Alaska to a region of California considered to be a center of real witchcraft.  Pumpkin patches with corn mazes and jumpy houses spring up all over the countryside October first.  Haunted houses use movie tech to make your fears a reality.  Approaching regular houses can be just as terrifying, as every block has a house or two decorated with as much care as only Christmas used to elicit.  If your neighborhood is a dud you go to another neighborhood.  Certain neighborhoods are slowly developing reputations for coolness, and get massive foot traffic.

In the deep woods and out on the beach, pagan rites are performed in all earnestness, complete with drums, chanting, and running in circles on broomsticks.  Animal shelters will not adopt out black cats.  Homeless teens are drawn into all kinds of perversion, including self mutilation and vampiric acts, by Wiccan priests who recruit them by offering shelter and a meal.  That's on the extreme end, but it's happening.

On a less horrible note, even elementary schools don't just have a little party with cupcakes in each classroom anymore.  There's a school wide carnival with its own haunted house, games, and tons of candy.  When the holiday falls conveniently for it, they schedule a teacher workday for November first so they don't have to deal with the fallout of sugar withdrawals and sleep deprived kids.

Winnie's kindergarten class went to a pumpkin patch on the thirty-first and each kid brought home a pumpkin, so we carved it that afternoon.  All my kids costumes came from their closet and imaginations.   None were scary.  We went to the mall early to begin trick or treating so the kids could get their fill of it by bedtime.  My thirteen year old bailed early and stayed home with Grandma to pass out little pots of play dough to trick or treaters at our house.  We finished up by going around our little immediate neighborhood.  Then we snuggled up at home with popcorn and a favorite show.

It was enough, and nothing's left but candy to consume and a pumpkin to throw on the mulch pile.  I'm neither a naysayer, nor an enthusiast.  I just don't care enough about a holiday that has no religious or emotional relevance to me.

I don't want to add to an environment conducive to the crazies by making more out of it than I need to.  And I'm definitely in bed early, kids tucked in and accounted for, and not out on the road as a target for a drunk driver, or at a dark party getting tipsy and making myself an easy target for a serial rapist or killer.  Perhaps I over think these things, but I have a strong aversion to things that intentionally generate fear for fun and do not enjoy deliberately exposing myself to things designed to frighten me or to known statistically dangerous environments.