Imagine Christmas

Last Sunday night I took Cambel and Ada to "Imagine Christmas" while Kevin met with our group of college students.
Imagine Christmas is a "gift" that our church gives to the neighborhood. The whole first floor of the church is decorated to look like Bethlehem and filled with volunteers in costumes recreating the busyness of the town, the open market, the rough Roman soldiers, the humble shepherds, the angels, Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, and donkeys and sheep (they were actually real animals, not people in costumes in case you were wondering).  The second floor is filled with activities for families--crafts, games, scavenger hunts, advent candles, dramas, and story reading.
Needless to say Cambel and Ada were excited to go and we spent the drive there talking about what we were going to see in Bethlehem and retelling the story of Christmas. The kids were asking questions and wanting to hear more and I was weaving together as much as I could of the birth of Jesus with His life and death and resurrection. I was even a little emotional treasuring this sacred time of sharing the gift of Christ with my children.  I was on a roll. We are talking Mother-of-the-Year material here.

Unfortunately the rush of spirituality did not last long.
After making our way through Bethlehem, sitting with the shepherds, listening to the angels, and visiting baby Jesus we headed upstairs. Here Cambel and Ada sat around a Christmas tree to hear the reading of "The Christmas Lizard" (a book in which a lizard learns the real meaning of Christmas. Hindsight would tell me that I should have known  introducing a reptile into the Christmas mix would throw Ada).
In a group of children who were almost all older than her Ada sat clutching her bag of goodies and listening carefully. When the storyteller posed the question to the group on the real meaning of Christmas she shouted out clearly with confidence and no sense of hesitation...

(wait for it...my proudest moment....)

"SANTA IS COMING!"

(scratch that Mother-of-the-Year award).

Cambel jumped in to correct her and said it was Jesus, at which point Ada started gesturing emphatically with her hands and saying "but, but, but." Thankfully her argument for why Christmas was about Santa was lost in the voices of a few other children.
After that it was a downhill slide. When told to line up to receive her candy cane, she pushed her way to the front and asked loudly for hers.
She took a bite of a cookie and then, upon deciding that she didn't like it, she placed it back on the tray.
On the sleigh ride, which, although frightfully cold, was beautiful and quite Christmas-y, she broke the silent night with a string of flatulence.
Right before we left I discovered that she had taken some (pretend) money from one of the shops in the market place.

Yes, we have some serious work to do if we are going to bring her successfully into adulthood (and if I am ever going to claim that elusive Mother-of-the-Year award).