Free Time on Christmas Eve

Yesterday I went with my mother and daughter to the annual Holiday Celebration at the Music Center in Los Angeles. It's somewhat of a holiday tradition with my family. I remember first going with my parents in high school, and we have been there a half dozen times since then.

The program is a six-hour free with music and dance performances by some of the best community groups in greater Los Angeles. The Christmas Eve event is free to the public, as well as parking (no small matter in downtown Los Angeles). This year, during the hour or so we stayed, we saw an all-women's mariachi group, jazz tap, Korean dance troupe, and gospel choir, among others. Along with performances featuring holiday songs, the program highlights Los Angeles' cultural diversity in the arts.

Usually, no matter what time you get there, you walk right in and sit down, though often in the balcony levels. Yesterday, when we came out of the underground parking garage about half an hour before the program started, we found a line stretching from the entrance to the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion (one of four venues at the Music Center) snaking down the central courtyard and out of site. We kept walking back, back, back, and finally found the end of the line one block away.

Well, we made it in and found seats on the lower balcony level with about ten minutes before the start. I had expected, by arriving before opening, we might find seats toward the front of the lower orchestra level. My daughter hadn't taken her nap, so we ended up leaving into the second hour of the program. But when we came out, the line looked just as long as earlier, but it wasn't moving because the staff only allowed people to enter as other people left the building.

Of course, with some 10 million people living in Los Angeles County, I suppose I should not have been surprised, since Christmas Eve being on Saturday meant most people would have the entire day off.

Happy holidays and merry Christmas to everyone!

The Great Christmas Wars

According to this Associated Press story, religious conservatives are pressuring retailers like Target and Sears for not using enough of the word "Christmas" in their advertising and in-store displays.

I have heard a lot of claims in the media lately that the Christian faith is under attack in this country. Conservatives oppose such terms as "holiday card" and the greeting "Happy Holidays." They prefer "Christmas card" and "Merry Christmas" instead. They criticize the Bush White House for sending out holiday cards this year that had no mention of "Christmas" on them.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, it seemed that everyone celebrated Christmas. Almost everyone I knew, including those whose religion was Buddhist, celebrated Christmas, as a secular holiday if nothing else. After all, what child doesn't want to receive toys and other presents from Santa Claus?

It wasn't until I got to college that I met someone my own age who had never watched cartoons like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." I found out the reason was that her family was Jewish, and I learned that some families didn't celebrate Christmas for religious reasons.

And in the past decade or two, we have learned that Muslims celebrate their own holiday (Eid-al-Adha) during this period, and some African Americans prefer Kwanzaa to Christmas.

If those of different religions can withstand the cultural and marketing blizzard that occurs during the Christmas period and still hold onto their own religious and cultural traditions, being encouraged to have a "Merry Christmas" will do nothing to get them to change their religious beliefs, no matter how many times they hear it.

Conservatives in this country are attempting to promote Christmas as the only holiday that should be celebrated publicly during December. It is only a small part of a broader effort to promote their values in public life, something every thoughtful American should be wary of.

Perhaps conservatives should work harder on getting other Christians to celebrate the religious holiday of Christmas, instead of worrying about what to call things associated with the secular holiday of Christmas.

Sibling Jealousy

Our son was born at a local hospital almost one week ago. Mother and baby are both doing fine.

Our daughter (whom I will call Little Sunshine for the rest of this post) went to stay with my wife's parents on the day we went to the hospital. She came to visit with my wife's family on the day of the birth, and two days later, she spent the night with us in the hospital and we all went home (to her parents' house) the next day.

My wife's fear over the past nine months, due to conversations she has had with co-workers and relatives, was that Little Sunshine would be jealous of the attention paid to Baby Brother. She is especially strong-willed, and so far at preschool she shows no effort to share with other kids or show any regards for them.

But we read a book called "I'm a Big Sister Now" with her dozens of times since the summer, and we often asked where Baby Brother was (she would point to Mommy's abdomen).

On the day of the birth, Little Sunshine started crying and raising a fit when I changed the baby's diaper toward the end of the visit. And she was crying "Mommy," "Daddy," and "Baby" when her grandparents took her back home. We took it as a bad sign, but things have been going well since then, and she has wanted to help with bottle feedings and diaper changes and been generally protective of Baby.

Tonight Little Sunshine and I are going back to our home (with my mother), and she will go back to preschool for the first time since Thanksgiving. My wife and the baby will stay with her parents for about a month. Culturally, my wife is supposed to rest as much as possible and do certain things that help her recover from pregnancy and childbirth, which my mother isn't able to do at this point.