Addison, the Baby Jesus and a Big Guy Named God

 

This was one of those conversations that began innocently and then went off the rails to a place I don’t want to revisit – for a moment in time, I was the “Grandma from Hell”.

December, 2012 (Addison was 4)

I’m going to take Addison to church today.  This is the first time for me in a couple years and Addison’s first time ever.  I really need to straighten out this “Baby Jesus Thing”.  At Christmas, she helped me set-up the Nativity and I told her about the Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  Later she asked me if the Baby Jesus was alive and without thinking, I said, “Oh Addison that was a long time ago”.  Addison apparently knows what “a long time ago” means and a little later, she came to me crying – “Is the Baby Jesus really dead?”  What had I done, my little Granddaughter thought the Baby Jesus was dead.  I had to come up with something to ease her distress.  I dug myself into a hole by saying, “Addison, the Baby Jesus is just like Eddie the Elf, he comes at Christmas time and then Santa takes them both back to the North Pole.”  What!!! Now she thinks the Baby Jesus travels with Eddie the Elf. 

So, continuing the story, I was reading Chia and Addison a Laura Ingalls Wilder book for Preschoolers.  Addison knows a lot about the Ingalls family and their good old dog Jack.  Halfway through the story she told Chia that they (the Ingalls family) weren’t “real”.  I told her they were a real family.  She said, “Did they live before or after the Baby Jesus?”

I’m hoping to straighten this out today.  Of course, hard to do – my daughter, Sarah (Addison’s mother), told Addison yesterday that when she goes to Sunday School, they would talk about a big guy named God.   So now, Addison thinks the Baby Jesus travels with Eddie the Elf and Santa, the Ingalls family lived before or maybe after the Baby Jesus and somewhere there’s a big guy named God.  Maybe we should just skip Sunday School and go to Leo’s for pancakes and sausage.