This Sunday, I went on the hunt for a book about the Christmas story for Caroline. Digging through piles of "A Dora Christmas" and "Merry Christmas, Stinky Face," I found a Little Golden Book called "The Christmas Story." It had nice illustrations and seemed like a level she could understand, so I bought it.
Tonight, after a brief knock-down about what books we would read, I insisted we try something new and broke out The Christmas Story. I started out by reading exactly as it was written: The angel said, "You are blessed among women, for you shall have a son. He shall be called the Son of God and his kingdom shall never end."
Now I'm not sure how I thought she'd react, but she kept looking over the edge of the bed toward "Frosty the Snowman" and "Dora's Sweet Adventure."
So I tried a different approach and rewrote the story a bit: So these shepherds were in this big field, watching over their sheep to make sure they didn't run away. And this angel flew through the sky and scared them. But the angel said, "Don't be scared. I've got some good news for you...and the shepherds were so happy they decided to go see this baby Jesus..."
You'd have thought I just turned on Barney. She started asking, "Who are those guys, Mama?" So I said, "Those are three wise men (one, two, three) and they went to visit baby Jesus and took him some treats..."
And she said, "Like candy?"
