Advent Begins

... so I'm sort of a day late on that. And since my friend Courtney always has clever ideas that boggle my mind, you can follow her 'virtual advent calendar' like me. But I had a cute lego story to tell. This picture was also taken the other night and I thought it was great. We have a 'real' nativity scene (well, not real, donkeys make messes) in our dining room that I don't think Megan has noticed. But this snow globe featuring the wise men with baby Jesus as definitely captured her attention.

It plays music, specifically "We Three Kings of Orient Are," and Megan dances to it. She just points at Jesus and says 'baby' and then begs to have the music played where she immediately starts dancing. At first I thought it was a bit sacreligious that Jesus, in a snow globe, was being hip-hop danced to by my nearly two year old daughter, but now I think it's adorable and a perfect way to start her thinking more about religion.

We have quietly pushed her towards a Christian background and I'm hoping that she embraces it as a central part of her life as Jillian and I were fortunate to have. She actively goes to daycare at church where they are just starting to tell Bible stories to them. Her favorite book a few months ago was "Jesus Loves Me," and she has started joining in with us and clasping her hands 'in prayer' with us at the dinner table. She doesn't know what she's doing, most of the time just stares back and forth at us and does it because we are, but I like to think I'm at least a positive role model for her. And it's cute to hear her say "Amen" at the end.

Will she be involved in the church like we were? Will she become more active than we could even imagine? Will she rebel from it? Forge her own path? I don't know. I don't want to force her to church, but as I'm finding with lots of things in parenthood, there's a fine line between forcing them and prodding them into trying something they are reluctant to do on their own. I'm seeing it now with vegetables and activities. When my parents divorced, the weekends when I went to my mom's house meant getting dressed up in a gray suit complete with clip-on tie. Not the most appealing.

But because my dad didn't really go to church, it wasn't until I went to live with my mom in high school that church became a more regular thing. Thankfully, the clip-on tie and other garb were left behind. However, I think that also meant that I didn't get 'burned out' from church as a kid, plus youth group was fun, and girls were there. Don't underestimate the power of girls as a selling point to a high school boy. Once I got past the superficial reasons though, I found peace in prayer, goose bumps from singing hymns, and a feeling of being a part of something greater than myself and a focus on loving and supporting others; something as a teenager I was in short supply of perspective wise.

But I am getting WAY beyond myself. For this year I'm content to watch Megan become interested in "baby Jesus," that she enjoys reading Bible stories that are cleverly disguised as kid books, and that she looks forward to the Asiago bagel she gets after church. These are all happy memories that will hopefully foster into a more compassionate and mature decision about the church.