Christmas Traditions and an Offensive Rant

Chapter 1 - Dinner Time

Are you one of those parents who has children who refuse to eat, no matter what you make? Do you grow tired of fighting with your kids every mealtime? If so, you might want to skip this first Chapter....

Notice the time-stamp on these 4 pictures:

 12/09/10 6:34:07

 12/09/10 6:34:12

  12/09/10 6:34:23

12/09/10 6:34:29

The Boy was taking a bite every 22 seconds! And I took the pictures at the end of his 2nd plate of food. Now I will admit, not every meal is quite like this, sometimes there is a full 30 seconds between bites - cold cereal can be hard to get on the spoon - but I am proud to say that my child likes the food. 

(Two quick side comments here: #1 Since I am the one cooking dinner should we surprised that the boy thinks it is awesome? I make awesome things that I like to eat, so of course they are good. #2 What is your child's favorite cold cereal? Something with marshmallows or coated in sugar? Owen's favorite cereal, which he eats every morning, is Special K with Strawberries. Seriously, what kind of kid eats a cereal that is marketed at the women who are trying to loose the weight that they gained bringing them into the world? What really stinks is this means that I don't get to eat cereal with marshmallows or coated with sugar.)

Chapter 2 - Object Lessons

"The Foolish Man built his house upon the sand,"

 "The Foolish Man built his house upon the sand,"

 "The Foolish Man built his house upon the sand,

 And the Rains came a'tumbling down!"

"The Rains came down, and the floods came up,

The Rains came down, and the floods came up,

The Rains came down, and the floods came up,"

 "And the house on the sand washed away!"

 "The Wise Man built his house upon the Rock,"

 "The Wise Man built his house upon the Rock,"

 "The Wise Man built his house upon the Rock,

And the Rains came a'tumbling down!"

 "The Rains came down, and the floods came up,

The Rains came down, and the floods came up,

The Rains came down, and the floods came up,"

"And the house on the Rock stood firm!"

Chapter #3 - Gingerbread Houses Graham Cracker Houses

There really was a point to the Object Lesson that I did with the Boy for Family Home Evening (FHE) - more than just getting him to understand what the song was talking about. The point was to introduce Gingerbread Houses (So I am starting a revolution here, I am tired of calling things what they aren't. I don't make gingerbread, and I don't use it for my house. I use Graham Crackers, so I am going to call a spade a spade and say that I make Graham Cracker Houses. And another thing that bugs me about calling things what they aren't, Book of Mormon stories are not about the Lamanites, that song is on my list!)

Each week for FHE we have been doing a different Christmas Tradition. Week one was the Christmas Countdown Chain:

Week two was snowflakes:

And week three was Graham Cracker Houses. Now I have blocked most of the memories of my childhood out of my brain (Sorry Mom, but it is true, I don't remember too much before the 53 days 14 hours and 27 minutes that I had to live in Idaho Falls...it was kind of traumatic.) One of the things that I do remember was making Graham Cracker Houses every Christmas. Now there were two styles of building in our house. There was my brother Kevin who would pretty much build a million dollar mansion out of graham crackers, and then the rest of us who were lucky to get a box to stay up. Since I could never compete with the Awesome factor of my brothers designs (And they were designed pieces of art, he would sketch them first, and then make sure that he got the perfect graham crackers, and use a knife to cut them...he could probably get people to pay him money to do this now.) I would go for sheer candy holding potential. (I once built a football stadium so that I could have gummy bears as the crowd sitting on Smarties for their bleachers, and I got to put 22 more gummy bears out on the field!)

Needless to say, with my love of the sweet things of the world, Graham Cracker Houses are a tradition to stay. Owen was tremendously excited to build one, and especially to snitch the candy. (Again, children are like dogs - if you are really excited about something, so are they. This also works with cartoons. Owen watches Phineas and Ferb, Kick Buttowski, and recently has gotten into the Marvel comic series because I like those cartoons. There are some other cartoons that he has tried to watch that I don't like - Pretty much anything coming out of Japan, ask your grandpa what he thinks of the Japs, and that is pretty much how I feel about what they have done to cartoons!) 

**I know this is a terrible place to get sidetracked, but I have to tell you about the Marvel comic thing. I don't know where he learned about Iron Man, probably from the commercials on TV, but he thinks Iron Man is pretty awesome. Then he got an early Christmas present from a family friend that was two Marvel Comic Monster Trucks, Spiderman and Thor. He knew who Spiderman was, but he didn't know anything about Thor, so I checked and Thor has his own show that comes on after Iron Man. If you don't know about Thor, he is the Norse God of Thunder who has left Asgard to come to earth to help us out, he has a big Hammer named Mjollnir, and he is pretty much invincible because he is after all, a demi-god. Owen loves Thor, and so I had to drop this bombshell on him. When we first found out that we were having a boy, the first name that I suggested to my lovely wife was....Thor! Owen went the rest of the day being called Thor, and I thought that I might have a bit of a situation on my hands when Beki got home, but by the end of the day Owen had decided that he liked Owen better. (In case you are wondering, Thor's father's name is Oden, so when Beki rejected Thor, I went to Oden. She didn't like that either (no sense of gradure and adventure) so while watching the world cup I saw a player named Michael Owen, and Owen is close to Oden. Beki thought Owen "wasn't bad" and so we went with it.**

Ok, that got a bit off topic, back to the Graham Cracker Houses (Which I am eating right now...stale candy, rock hard icing, and soggy graham crackers, what is not to like?)

 One of the most difficult parts about being a parent I feel, is being patient enough to find ways that your children can help you. It was a big responsibility to hold the roof together so that papa would stick it together!

 Putting the candy is right up a 4 year olds alley! I did the first one, just to show him what he was supposed to do, and then he picked out what he wanted and where.

 By the time we were done he was a pro.

 We took a bunch of pictures, and this was the best one that we got. I guess this is what you get when your child has been snitching candy for an hour. (His mother really shouldn't set such a bad example for him!!)

 Here are the front doors...

And the back doors (Except for Beki's cause she didn't put a back door on hers.)

Now before we leave this topic, I am going to be a little vain and show you a close up of my Graham Cracker House:

I say that you are not a true homeowner until you create your house in candy form!!!

Chapter 4 - The US Botanical Gardens

Owen had so much fun at the Botanical Gardens last year that we decided that we needed to go again this year. The main attraction during the Christmas Season is the train exhibit. Designer Paul Busse makes replicas of famous building out of plant matter, and then makes a fantasy world with trains running all around. It is a great plan, Owen and Dean are there for the trains, and I get to look at the cool replicas. And so here are pictures in rapid fire order - the boy is in all but one, just because I feel silly putting up pictures that are unrelated to the boy.

 Right as you walk in they have a large Christmas Tree with a train running around it. We almost didn't make it into the exhibit...

 The Taj Mahal - and of course Thomas with Annie and Clarabell

 As much as I despise Paris, this was impressive since it is all from plants. (And there is Thomas again.)

 Petra - the city in Jordan that you probably know from Indiana Jones. (And there is Percy)

 Owen was actually interested in the Great Sphinx, but he turned and ran away as I was taking the picture.

 The Boudhanath Stupa. Now before you think that the boys are great scholars of all things from Nepal, notice that there is a little Tram engine running in front.

 Hagia Sophia. (It's in Turkey)

 Tikal and Machu Picchu (The boys liked the little Caterpillar train, but Owen wanted to know where the Ladybug train was. Apparently last year there was a ladybug train. My son, who can not remember what he did at school that day, remembers a specific train from a year ago.)

 This was my favorite - Neuschwanstein Castle

 The boys played in this tunnel for probably an hour

 The White Heron Castle, a Waterfall coming out of a tree and a railway bridge...the boys were transfixed!!

 I know that we have already seen Petra, but this is the boy running along with Percy, pumping his arms like a train!!

  

 After the trains we did go and look at the rest of the Gardens. This giant barrel cactus got some attention, mostly because they were discussing why you shouldn't touch cacti.

 Owen is like his papa, fascinated with Waterfalls and fountains. (Dean is even more fascinated, he actually tried to climb in one!)

 Back to the big tree from the beginning, this time racing the train!

The decorations on the tree were totally gaudy over the top...Loved It!!!

!!!Warning, the following Rant is OFFENSIVE!!!

I know I say that a lot, but this one will truly offend all members of my family and friends at some point! (Isn't that how you know that you have done a good job, when everyone is offended?)

Ok, so there has been this video floating around the web, and I've seen it linked on a number of facebook pages:

     First off, when put together a video of all of the ignorant people that you find wandering out and about on the street, it is easy to make it look like everyone is that way. But that actually isn't what bugs me about this video. What really bugs me is the point that they are trying to make that humans don't choose to be "gay" or "straight." Now before you blow a gasket hear me out. The answer that everyone of these people should have given when asked when they chose to be straight is "Every Day."

     Before you go burning effigies of me, let me make it clear that I am not suggesting that people just wake up one morning and say, "You know what, I really want to subject myself to widespread ridicule and abuse...I think I'll be gay!" There is no doubt that same gender attraction is a very real and powerful emotional condition. But you know what, so is Pedophilia, Alcoholism, Anorexia, Bulimia, Bestiality, Gluttony, Gambling, Homophobia, I think you get my point. Every person has desires and appetites that excite them more than others, and they deal with them every day. Every person wakes up every morning and has to decide how they are going to act that day. It bothers me that the opinion being pushed in this video and other popular posts out there is that because someone has same gender attraction they have no choice or control over their behavior. 

    If a pedophile - and if you say that same gender attraction is an occurrence  of nature, then the same must be said for those who have the desire to have sex with children  - CHOOSES to act on those desires, he is placed in jail for a long long (but probably not long enough) time. How is that fair? He is born that way. How is it fair to put someone in jail just because they are an alcoholic and drove their car home from the bar and killed a family? How is it fair to let a person lose their life savings because they gamble it away. Shouldn't we give them back their losses because they couldn't help it, they were born with the compulsive desire to gamble. Women, if you catch your man looking at porn, you can't be mad, it just the way that men are.

   Everything in that paragraph is absurd. Society has dictated that somethings are unacceptable, no matter how much you want to have sex with a sheep, if you are caught you will go to jail. There is no law against being a practicing homosexual, and it would be ludicrous to think that there should be. But I think it is equally ludicrous to think that we have no control over our actions. How you feel and how you act are definitely linked, but to borrow from my wife's science, Correlation does not imply Causation. What that means is that even though I really would like to go eat some ice cream right now (one of my greatest weaknesses) I can CHOOSE not to.

     I don't know why people feel that they need to poke their heads into other people's business, but as much as same gender attraction is real, so is homophobia. If a homosexual is not to be held accountable for the choices that they make in regard to their sexuality, then a homophobe can not be held accountable for their actions towards them. Look at California for example. The gay and lesbian community can't help but have parades, demonstrations and protests for the last umpteen years, and the homophobes couldn't help proposing and passing a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage.

   I would hope that most of us would look and that and realize the ridiculousness of it all. Would it bother me if my neighbor married her partner? Would it make my marriage less special? Of course not. If a leader of a church wants to give advice to people who have same gender attraction who want to stay in good fellowship in that church, should people who do not wish to be affiliated with that church protest? (Yes, I went there, and since I am there, let me get some anger out. I don't give a damn if any practicing gay, lesbian, or trans-gendered person felt offended by the remarks made by President Boyd K. Packer last October. Why in the &*$# do you care? He wasn't speaking to you. You want us to keep God and our morals out of your lives, then stay the hell out of ours. You cry for tolerance and say that mainstream society needs to be accepting, yet you display the very same intolerance that you protest against.)

    Now, you might be asking, why do I care if people are not being held accountable for their actions? I teach children, and this attitude is permeating into the younger generations, and they don't think that they are responsible for anything that they do. And if we as a society let this continue we are creating a situation where some children are going to graduate from childhood straight into societies jails. When you have a student throw a chair at your head, and then listen to how everyone says that he can't help it because he has "Anger Issues" you come to the realization that we are creating a society of worthlessness.

    So I suppose that I should remember to take my medication before I go off on tangents like this, but to recap, I do not care about your sexual preference, or any other vice that you have. (I hope that it is at least your own sheep.) Every action that you take is a choice that you have made, whether to follow through on your desires, or to withhold them. This idea that man  does not choose how he acts because he was born with a particular inclination towards one thing or another is just plain wrong. I would ask that if you CHOOSE to comment that you CHOOSE to be civil.