Intermission - Merry Mass Mess
The Duckstack will resume next week
Jolly old saint duckstack
Every child loves to wake up on Christmas morning, and rush to all the duckstacks under the Christmas tree, and the duckstacks overflowing and spilling out of their stockings, and the duckstacks that have replaced their parents, and their furniture. What child has not experienced this? They are missing out.
Nutrition facts
Nutrition logic
mountains are not good to eat.
Iron ore has many times your recommended daily value of iron in it.
Bleach is nutritious, but also will kill you if you drink any of it at all1, which just goes to show: Too much of a good thing
Christmas trees have “fiber”
Your teeth are edible by definition
Beef is better than chicken, but chickens can fly.
The best thing for you is to eat
Christmas cookies have the yearly recommended value of holiday cheer in them
Commercial
Not like, an advertisement. More like the concept of advertisement
When I first heard the word commercial as an adjective, it was watching some Christmas children’s cartoon like flinstones or charlie brown. They complained about the holidays getting too “commercial” and then my mom watched hallmark movies that said the same thing, so I assumed it to be true. Or at least something that “people thought about”, which means it certainly has a true-ish quality to it, even if I never saw the silly consumerist stereotypes around me.
But this year it feels very true. Maybe part of that is the contrast between our son Jethro’s passing between last Christmas and this. As a parent, you want to give your kids the best life possible, and this means things like teaching them self restraint, teaching them to say sorry, lots of life skills that they will need to have success as an adult. When you know your kid is dying, “a good life” takes on a completely different meaning.
Jethro helped with this. He knew his life had a chance of being cut very short before he was born, and so he came to us with a tiny dragon’s hoarder heart. Those “things” suddenly actually were, very important. Isn’t that an odd feeling? Getting some $5 happy meal is suddenly on moral par with going to college2. Thanks to many generous friends, and the touching help of charities such as Mac’s Gift and Nixon Strong Foundation, we were able to give Jethro all sorts of experiences that were every bit as sentimental as we could have hoped. The games and the toys lit his world and by extension ours.
And this Christmas week, I was listening to a song about Santa Claus, and got offended.
Without Jethro, the commercialism is actually quite hollow. Our toddler likes toys too, but not nearly as much, and a focus on material just feels so empty. The holidays were always about family to us, and they still are, and now, there is in some ways no Jethro without Christ. Without a together-present, a holiday that includes all of our family must look forward to the resurrection, and I feel songs praising the Lord very keenly because of this.
I want to make Christmas not “commercial”. I want a Christmas that doesn’t distract from Christ with characters such as Santa. I want a Christmas focused on our family. Streamlined. What’s important to us has only become more important, and it is the savior of the world who makes this possible. I am glad even so long ago with my children’s cartoons that people felt the same way- because now there is a foundation for celebration of the stereotypical “true meaning of Christmas”, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, who is the savior of the world3.
History
Luke 2
After my wife’s phone beeped, the toddler asked her, “did your phone ring?” And she told him “no, that was just a notification.” and then he asked her, “did your phone captioned?”
We’ve been doing a chocolate advent calendar, with different shaped chocolates. The toddler saw an ice skate one and gave it right to mama: “here mama, you can have the foot sled.”
Toddler shoving wrapping paper over the infant: “now she’s a present”
infant watching us pick up and drop wrapping paper to the ground repeatedly: “giggle giggle giggle”
The toddler was playing with one of those jingle bells things, like the actual round bell, and he got his finger stuck in it, which was really distressing to him. And he started crying and being distressed and cried out to us in earnest despair: “Nooo! my finger does not taste good!”
Ducksnax
North
I have not tested this but people I like and respect have and I trust their word for it
Maybe to God, with his eternal perspective, these things have always been identical.
2 Nephi 4:16 Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard.
17 Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.
18 I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.
19 And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.
20 My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.
Good over evil