What Child is This?

We just returned from our annual pilgrimage to the east coast for Christmas with my family. I was going to complain about the flight from San Francisco to Newark and back with 2 children, 2 car seats and 150 diapers shoved into their own suitcase (in case we got stranded), but there's no story there. The kids behaved as well as a talkative 3 year old and constantly mobile 1 year could have, given they were relegated to a 4 x 2 ft space for 6 hours.

Though the journey sucked, once there, all nightmarish travel memories vanished. There are 2 things I look forward to the most each Christmas season. First is the continuous playing of 'What Child is This'. It evokes such emotion in me, not for the message, but purely for the gorgeous, dramatic music. Second is the children's service at my Uncle's church on Christmas Eve. I'm not a church goer, nor am I particularly religious, but for some reason the singing of Christmas carols off tune with the rest of the masses, the cool bell choir, and the dimming of the lights to sing Silent Night really get me. I was excited to go and I took Charlie with me. I wasn't sure how he was going to behave, but I figured it was the children's service so how bad could it be?

After my mother spent the entire 30 minute car ride talking up the bell choir, we arrived 5 minutes late, just in time to miss it. Charlie spent our first few moments in church asking in a very un-churchlike voice, 'Where are the bells? Why isn't anyone playing the bells?' I think he felt he had been duped. This was not what his Yia Yia (my mom) had promised him. During the choirs rendition of 'What Child is This', he became suspicious that no one else was singing, 'Why aren't we singing? Why are only those people up there singing? Why are they holding books?'

I didn't want to ignore his questions, so I whispered answers to him and calmly asked him to follow suit. Clearly he thought he was somewhere other than church and we were trying to hide it from him. The situation escalated, as did his decibel level, 'Is this church? Are we in church now? I'm being serious with you, Mommy, is this church?'

His concern of a cover up was further fueled as they turned off most of the lights in the church to sing Silent Night. 'Who turned off the lights? Where's the light switch? Did they lose power? Where will the utility repair truck have to go to fix the lights? How will they be able to see if there's no lights?' I'm not sure if when the entire congregation turned around it was to see the face that belonged to the voice or the parent responsible for it? Fortunately, most people looked amused. That quickly changed while in the midst of the minister's sermon, Charlie asked in his loudest voice yet, 'Is it over yet? Can we go? When will she be done?' The minister looked like she could easily switch teams and do the devil's bidding with her piercing glare. I thought only I could look at my son like that.

Fortunately, the service was about over as the bell choir wrapped things up with 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'. It was fantastic and Charlie was completely mesmerized. I think he actually believed for the first time that he was at church. The bell people (not sure what you call them) were concentrating quite hard as they read their music and rang their bells. Charlie felt the need to ask a couple of more pertinent questions before his departure, 'How come they're not smiling? Are they not happy at church?'

As we headed out, at the end of the aisle the minister and choral director were waiting, greeting people and thanking them. They both knew exactly who we were as I tried to avoid direct eye contact. The choral director was quite pleasant and remarked how many bright and well thought out questions Charlie asked for his age. The minister stared at me and with a tight smile, muttered, 'Merry Christmas'. Charlie smiled right back and said, 'See you later, poo poo.' At the risk of being put on Santa's Naughty List, I whispered in his ear, 'Good job, buddy.'