My Yule, Appalachian Christmas, Mennonite Christmas/Chanukah with Rowan

Opening Yule gifts.

Life is weird and delightful. Let me just get that out of the way from the get-go. I know that as a Witch (who is a hard polytheist and has a very particular theology counter to what many people know and experience), my life is always going to be a little surreal. That's OK. I chose this life and am happy to live it.

Raising Rowan with our (his father is also a Witch) values while simultaneously respecting the religions of his relatives and friends is always challenging and takes a lot longer than keeping to ourselves or giving up/in to Santa Claus and the typical American secular Christmas.

New Trike!

So this time of year, we celebrate Yule as a family on the 21st, then Christmas with extended family, and then Chanukah with close friends. We counted down to Yule using an advent calendar with special fun and/or candy each day. The morning of the solstice, we opened gifts that were placed beneath a holiday tree that we decorated ourselves (as an event on the calendar!).

I am all about celebrating the traditions that were/are ours as pagans, polytheists, and Witches. I also let Rowan know that Christians do these things too- because they wanted in on the Witchy fun.* So we do the tree, gifts, lights, feasts, all the fun things that most people like about Christmas, but aren't specifically Christian in origin.

A "fallen" snow angel.

Rowan's grandparents are a little puzzled when we tell them that "we celebrated on the 21st", even though they know we are Witches. They ask few questions because they are afraid of the answers. That's OK. At each sabbat, it's all about connection- retying ourselves to the Wheel and each other. So I will not diminish the connection by forcing my views on anyone. And I expect the same from Christians and Jews.

Snow demon

After Yule (in addition to the advent calendar, the tree, and gifts, we had a log that burns three candles, had held a sabbat with other trad Witches in the area at our home), we trekked to Appalachia to Rowan's paternal grandparent's home for Christmas. We had a party that evening with aunties and uncles and cousins (where the family participates in a white elephant gift exchange and receives gifts from the family matriarch), then opened gifts for one another. Rowan made out like a bandit, as did the elder Kunnings- we got a flatscreen TV. (More on this in subsequent blog posts, I am sure.)

Rowan and E.

After several days relaxing with grandparents, we journeyed northward to Bluffton, a charming Mennonite settlement town in Northwest Ohio.

There we celebrated a family Christmas (late) with a family not our own. We traveled there to see our friend, R, and her daughter, E. We know them (and R's partner, D, from our childbirth class with the midwife we shared.

Our children were born a week apart and they have been friends their whole lives, literally. We are close to R and D and cannot wait until they leave San Francisco for Pennsylvania. After that, we will be spending one weekend a month with one another, rotating PA for OH, after they move. Huzzah! For now, we keep in touch with Skype and infrequent visits.

Rowan and E.

Can I just say? I love the way that R's family is with one another. It is a huge family, and very close. They are intellectuals and value education and the arts. It is a pleasure to play "Family Fun Game" with them or watch them open their gift exchange. They are also very active in social justice movements and pacifists, which is a welcome change after Appalachia- where Fox News, polarization, and guns are the norm. R's father is Jewish and her mother is Mennonite. She always resonated with the Jewish side of herself and when she was pregnant, she converted to Judaism and now she and her daughter are Jewish and they do shabbat every week and this time of year, they celebrate Chanukah. So we celebrate with them, too.

My holidays are far from the norm, but I love them. I love that Rowan is growing up with a big universe and knows all kinds of people.

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*When he gets older, I will let him know that many Christians do not understand that what they do is pagan in origin- and that is OK. We do not need to rub it in their faces, as long as Christians do not begrudge us our fun, we will not piss on their parade, either. (And most of the Christians that we know and love do understand that most cultural trappings of Christmas are actually Euro-pagan and do not care.)

Happy Holidays!

Hope everyone had a blessed Yule and Solstice.

Happy Christmas to all my Christian readers.

Happy fifth night of Hannukah to all my Jewish readers.

Happy Kwanzaa (starting tomorrow!) to all my readers who celebrate that holiday.

Blessed be the dark and returning of the light.

I'll be back in 2012 with even more Craft, natural parenting, and homeschooling blog posts (and a lot more!)

Happy Krampusnacht!

Happy Krampusnacht, everyone!

Book Review: Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel

I can just hear the refrain now: "Oh my. Witch Mom is reviewing a Christian parenting book! And she HATES it. What a surprise!"

I've got nothing against Christians. At least, not the ones that have nothing against me or other religious, sexual, racial, gender, and other types of minorities. But the minute you start using your religion as an excuse for bigotry or intolerance, you and I will have words- pointy, spikey words.

The reason that I am not down with this book is not because the book talks about parenting from another religious perspective. I have no issue with that and feel that I have something to learn from all faiths. (I recently reviewed a Jewish parenting book favorably, and have several Buddhist and another Christian book in the review queue. All of them are scoring more hats than this one.)

So what's the problem? I dislike intensely when people write about Christianity like its a persecuted minority in this country. For the record, it's not. The culture wars that are evoked so often by evangelicals are just ways to get their followers (be they book buyers or parishoners) whipped into a frenzy so that they identify with a message, buy more stuff, and be easily manipulated. Those messages tend to be exclusive and bigoted and often exclude others (take for instance, the "happy holidays" crisis of 2005 onward).

At several times in the book, the author hearkens back to a time when the Ten Commandments were "etched in stone", as opposed to today (as a result of the culture wars) where they are "written in pencil, on a post-it note." Yes, he really does invoke the culture wars- several times in the book. It sets my teeth on edge and makes it hard to sift through the messages in the book to find things of value.

And there are some things of value, hidden among the hard-line bible thumping. (He appears to be a literalist when it comes to scripture, and I wonder what he thinks of say... witches and homosexuals. His book does not directly address these issues (it seems to me, as a minority reading the book, to be the elephant in the room). But he does explicitly state in the "Freedom To Be Different" chapter, "Since being misunderstood is an occupational hazard for Christian writers, I need to qualify what I don't mean here (in allowing your children to be "different"). I'm not saying that grace based homes should tolerate sin, evil, or anything that goes contrary to clearly held precepts in the Bible." So I'm left to infer that allowing his son to bleach his hair is fine (which was the illustrative example), but if his son were gay, it would not be fine.

To his credit, he does talk about how many parents get it wrong- he calls them Judgmental Parents or Legalistic Parents. These are the parents that think it is their role to judge others (including their children) or the ones that assure that everyone in their family is following the letter of the Bible (the Legalistic Parents). Instead of these tired models, he calls for Grace Based Parents: who believe in God's grace and gifts to us, humankind. I can get behind that message, even if we disagree on the nature of God Herself.

Grace Based Parenting is a premise I like, especially when he talks about relying on grace when our children are hardest to love. Or living with gratitude. All things that I like. If only he were that open and grace filled when it came to all the non-Christians and queers on the planet.

To figure out where this guy is really coming from, I visited his website (he has a ministry focused around families and heterosexual Christian couples and again, NOTHING was written about gays and lesbians, but evidentally so-called "cross-dressing" is bad:

"For instance, your daughter wants to wear her hair in a crew cut and dress like a man...You would find the Bible frowning on such a request. What about the issue of morality? What if your daughter wants to dress like Madonna or one of the Spice Girls? The Bible has a great deal to say about modesty, which would veto her request."- from the Family Matters Ministries website.

In the end, I can't really recommend this book to my readers. It is too closed minded and does not pass muster on some of the harder parenting questions of our age.

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Formal Rating:

Title: Grace Based Parenting, Set Your Family Free
Author: Dr. Tim Kimmel
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Price: $14.99 USD 
ISBN: 978-0-8499-0548-3

Topics Covered: Parenting, Religion (Evangelical Christianity)

Target Audience: Heterosexual, Evangelical, Christian Parents and Families
 
Witch Mom Rating: Half a Hat
My readers (whom I believe to be like me, working on cultivating personal ethics and discernment in their children (as opposed to having their children adhere to a set of prescribed morals) will probably not get much out of this book.