Christmas... the season to be...a sheep?

I cop a lot of flack for not being 'into' Xmas. I get called a grinch, a spoil sport, and get scoffed at.  How can one not be into Xmas you ask?  Easy.

Why do we celebrate Xmas? Well that depends on your belief system.  If you are Christian you probably toe the party line and parrot that Xmas is about the birth of Jesus, despite evidence to the fact that this is not a 'fact' (dont get me started on the greatest selling fictional story of all time). You probably havent looked at why December 25 was chosen. Yes, chosen. It had nothing to do with the bible and everything to do with assimilating with existing Pagan holiday of Saturnalia in 4CE, and telling Pagans they could continue their Saturnalia traditions, and the final day of Saturnalia was declared Jesus Birthday in order to add a 'Christian' aspect to the Pagan tradition. In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been. The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

So, do I believe in the story of Jesus and feel the need to celebrate a fictitious birth? No! Do I identify as Pagan and feel the need to celebrate Saturnalia? No! So we can safely say there is no religious reason for me to treat the day any differently to any other day.

Oh but what about the children, wont someone please think of the children, I hear you cry. If we look at the REAL history of Christmas, it is not a day that we would want to celebrate at all!

·        Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly.  For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.

·       Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the “curse of the Torah.”  It is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.

·        Christmas is a lie.  There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was really born on December 25^th.

·        December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.

·        Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of the most depraved pagan rituals ever practiced on earth.

'Santa Claus' or Saint Nick was was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra.  He died in 345 CE on December 6^th.  He was only named a saint in the 19^th century. Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament.  The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil” who sentenced Jesus to death. 

In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy.  There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts.  The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult.  Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

 The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans.  These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw.  Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn.  When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing. In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25^th instead of December 6^th.

In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow andRip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History.  The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus. Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.  The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…”  Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus.  From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly.  Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock.  Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world.  All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa.  Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face.  The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red.  And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.

So does any of this make me more inclined to think December 25 is different to any other day?  You guessed it, NOPE!  All this hubub and fuss over one day. Forcing people to feel like they have to socialise with people they wouldnt otherwise be around, awkward family get togethers and then the fighting over Christmas customs, the over indulging of food, spending copious amounts of money on things you probably dont need.  I just dont see the point.  There is absolutely NO reason for me to 'celebrate' December 25!  I honestly see no reason to buy into any of the Christmas propaganda.  But hey, if you want to lie to your kids about a fat man who breaks and enters, encourage your kids to sit on a strangers lap and take presents/lollies from them go for it. Nothing to do with me! But for me, I have no desire to perpetuate the theatrics.

We're breastfeeding and booked for surgery!

OK, so I may or may not have warned at the outset that I may not be good at this regular blogging buso.  I have often thought about my blog over the last few months...  So...  to catch up...

The good stuff:
Mr J is now exclusively breastfed!! *holds for applause*  For the last 6 weeks or so he has not had a bottle, I have not had to pump. He is a messy feeder still with milk running out his nose and all over both of us, a towel is a necessary accessory!  He is doing such a great job feeding and I am so proud of him.  We have just started to try and block feed to ensure he is getting plenty of fatty hindmilk because he is using a lot more energy to feed than a non cleft bub, and is not gaining weight.  Whilst this worries me, because lets face it, parenting is all about numbers, I am reassured by the fact that our surgeon and ENT both looked at him, commented he was 'little' and proceeded to announce him healthy.  I never would have thought my 4kg chunker would end up smaller than my 2.5kg premmie!

Mr J is now 6 months old, I know, where did that go??  He is rolling and showing a definite interest in food.  Bottles, no, but food, yeah.  Now we enter the fun food phase, made even more messy by his cleft.  Pureed pumpkin leaks from his nose for hours, a sneeze is a blanket of pumpkin and mucous.  Delightful.  Spaghetti can go in the mouth and out the nose.  Yesterday he stole a hot chip from my plate and mushed it up into his cleft.  He was sneezing chunks of chip and was clearly uncomfortable.  Its now turning into a discussion with the hubster about what to feed him.  Mr S refused purees, he was baby led weaning all the way.  That is what I want to do again.  He is worried about him eating food and choking/getting it stuck in his cleft.  I think we will just have to go with trial and error and Im sure he'll work it out.

I am now remembering why I was consciously trying not to gloat and relish in the fact my baby slept.  For the last 2 months or so he has been up almost hourly at night.  He is up from 20-40min each time, and it is exhausting!  I was hoping against hope that this time round I had a sleeper after the sleepless nightmare of Mr S.  Seems it is not to be.  Dealing with sleep deprivation is even worse with a toddler to deal with I've decided.  At least the toddler is sleeping well now!

My little ranga has now been booked in for his palate repair surgery, and grommets for December!  In the meantime he is ROCKING a bone conductor hearing aid, which is an amazing piece of technology.

In teaser news (in case I dont get around to another post for a while...), Im now 30, Mr S has had a psych evaluation and we get results next week, I failed dismally at the 12wbt and am feeling beyond blah about my body, hubby has been snipped and my days are HARD.  Mummyhood is sure not what I was expecting and most days are a real struggle,  Thats a story for its own post tho.  I'll try and be better, promise!

Get your finger out of there!

Since having Mr S I have found myself saying things I never thought I would...

'Please get your finger out of your butt...  NOOO dont lick it!'

'Wee is not for drinking or splashing in'

'Please don't use your toothbrush on your doodle!'

'Dont stick crayons in your bottom'

'Please stop eating chalk'
'Get your doodle out of your yoghurt!
'Don't put your doodle in there!'
'Dont stick your doodle in the straw!'
'Dont play with your doodle whilst you're sitting on my lap please!'

Are you seeing a theme here??

And daily... 'please leave your clothes on!'.  Mr S is a nudist.  Pants offend him apparently, and shirts are only for going out.  Case in point - Daddy L puts a shirt on, Mr S knows he's going out & puts his shoes on as he runs to the garage telling us which car he wants to go in.  Mr S has readily accepted this life choice.  Keeping clothes on him is a challenge & a half.

Every time I have to say something along the lines of those phrases mentioned above I roll my eyes at myself, and Daddy L giggles.   Seriously.  I actually have to say these things.  I honestly never ever imagined I would be adding this sort of thing to my everyday language.

Does anybody else have any fun mummy phrases they find themselves saying that they never thought they'd hear coming from their lips?!  Please share!