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 | holiday preparations |
I forget, from year to year, that some of my kids are too young to remember traditions.
A three-year-old, for example, may not remember the whole idea of Thanksgiving dinner.
And a vegetarian three-year-old may not have yet realized that not everyone eats the way her family does.
So when people are discussing their holiday preparations, she may be puzzled. She may look from one adult to the next, trying to fit their conversation into her understanding of the world.
Finally she will ask, “Do they mean they’re going to FEED a turkey? There will be a turkey there, and everyone can feed it?” Her little eyebrows will go up, hopeful.
And then, of course, you have to decide: do you tell the truth and freak her out (plus crush her newfound dream of hand-feeding live poultry), or lie and keep her world cruelty-free just a little while longer?
Or do you point in the other direction and say: “Oooh, look! Something shiny!” And hope for the best?
Something shiny! I think it might be a coin! Or maybe a magic wand!
Well, hello. From a long-lost stranger. Or at least a medium-time lost stranger.
Yes, shiny object. I think the old me wouldn’t have said that. But the new, mother of three boys me… I say magic is wonderful.
So nice to be back in circulation.
Oh, I know what you mean. We’ve been avoiding the big conversation. Like, you know, defining HAM (which my son B referred to as “pink bread” a few Easter’s ago). And then, a few weeks ago, during a Thanksgiving talk, B (age 5) said (with confidence and complete non-chalance), “I don’t want to eat animals.”
And there you go. No trauma. No elaboration. J and I nodded. Looked at each other. And, I at least, raised my eyebrows internally, as in, “Really, that’s it?”
My son doesn’t like the taste and texture of most meet. And recently the few kinds of meat he’s seen before I’ve prepared. Now he doesn’t want them either.
I vote for: oh look! something shiny!
Goldfish: so nice to see you! (Why have I not figured out how to install threaded comments? No idea. So I have to reply down here.)
Hi people, it’s Thanksgiving Day! I’m enjoying my extra day off, and I am planning to make something fun that’ll probably involve a bike ride and seeing something new in Chippewa Falls I haven’t seen yet.
You write new post at Thanksgiving?