Oh Christmas Tree

Littletree has spent most of her life either in third world countries or in non- Christian countries, so until now, the concept of Christmas has been mostly unknown to her.

Of course, now that we live in a Western country, and there's tinsel and pictures of Santa Claus pretty much everywhere, she's cottoned on. Last year we avoided the whole idea by skipping off in December to a rainbow gathering, but this year, she's been talking to other kids, and she's all excited about the idea of "going to Christmas".

I have mixed feelings about it. First of all, since her father is Jewish, I'm an Animist and Littletree herself has announced that she's Hindu, we don't really have much to do with Christian holidays. The over-commercialised aspect of Christmas rubs me entirely the wrong way, not to mention the bastardisation of pagan holidays and old European traditions.

Still, Littletree is excited about Christmas. I asked her what she thinks it is and she said "pretty shiny tinsel, Christmas trees and Santa" I asked her what Santa is and she said, "he's that old Christmas guy with red clothes."

Littletree doesn't have any concept of Santa coming and giving presents in the night (an idea I wouldn't perpetuate anyway), or even of expecting presents for Christmas. She merely wants to have tinsel and a tree to decorate in the house.

I thought we could decorate a tree in the garden, but what with us not having any smallish, reachable trees near our house, and the torrents of rain we've been getting, I bought her a little plastic Christmas tree in the dollar shop, and some tinsel and baubles from the op shop.

She LOVES it. 

Littletree spent ages decorating the tree, and putting baubles up around the whole house. I thought the tree would be put on a shelf in the corner, but Littletree has been playing with it constantly; she gets it down and sets it up in the middle of the living room all the time :)

Of course, I got a book from the library about traditions and holidays from cultures around the world so we can learn about Christmas and all the variations. We'll talk about the religious Christian aspect, as well and the old European traditions, and the pagan basis for things. We'll talk about the secular aspects of Christmas and how the religious Jews view the holiday, (the extreme of whom reserve the day for tearing the whole year's supply of toilet paper!) and solstice, Diwali, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, etc.