[email protected]

In a message dated 12/19/2001 12:45:56 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:


> Something I've been wondering.
> How does Santa fit in with unschooling?
> How many here have kids who believe in Santa?
> What age, if any, should this belief stop?
>
> My kids do believe in Santa. They are 8 & 10.
> I am beginning to squirm.
> I would love to hear how other's have handled this, and still managed to
> maintain some dignity for their kids.
> I'm beginning to wonder if we have handled this the wrong way.
> My thinking has changed a lot since we've started unschooling, including my
> thoughts about Santa.
>

This is my son's first year officially not believing in Santa. He's 12.

Julian is a kid who has entered puberty relatively early for a boy, but is
kind of young for his age in some ways. (In conversation with adults he comes
off as VERY mature, but he is really into being a kid, and is not into common
middle-school-age things.) Certainly Julin has had clues all over the place
that Santa might not be real, and he chose not to see them. I think
continuing to believe in Santa was his way of staying a little kid that much
longer.

He's done with it, and it feels right. He wasn't upset or anything, because
he was ready to let it go. He still wants to leave cookies and carrots out--
Just cuz.

Kathryn


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 08:48:54 EST KathrynJB@... writes:
>... but he is really into being a kid, and is not
> into common
> middle-school-age things.)


This is one of the things I find so charming about my son. He seems to
have a kind of old wisdom, an intuitive sense about right and wrong and a
maturity in some things I don't see in most adults I know. At the same
time he believes in the possibility his stuffed animals are really alive,
his favorite blanket can hear, and keep his secrets, and an ancient
someone is living in the mountain ash tree.

I know people who say boys "mature" slowly. I think boy's remain
idealistic longer.

Deb L

The Mowery Family

> This is one of the things I find so charming about my son. He seems to
> have a kind of old wisdom, an intuitive sense about right and wrong and a
> maturity in some things I don't see in most adults I know. At the same
> time he believes in the possibility his stuffed animals are really alive,
> his favorite blanket can hear, and keep his secrets, and an ancient
> someone is living in the mountain ash tree.


I like your boy.

At 33, I believe that the animals/toys(real or plush) CAN talk at midnight
on christmas eve. That my pets can understand and have a special language
only other animals can understand, including those in the forest.

Who knows, maybe it was because I was WAAAAYY into Benji movies. To this
day, I can't watch a talking animal movie without busting into tears at some
point (ie: Homeward Bound, Milo and Otis, etc.) Ask my girls, I am famous
for bustin loose.

Karen M.

[email protected]

I can't watch a talking animal movie without busting into tears
> at some
> point (ie: Homeward Bound, Milo and Otis, etc.) Ask my girls, I am
> famous
> for bustin loose.
>
> Karen M.

I don't even TRY to watch these kinds of movies. They tear me up. I'll
stick with the Sci-fi, horror, slasher movies, thanks. Slice up a
teenager any day, but don't make me look at that poor cat holding on for
dear life as the log races down river. For pity's sake, I cried during
King Kong!

Deb L

[email protected]

<< I know people who say boys "mature" slowly. >>

I think those who mature slowly mature best.

For some reason I've always been interested in boy-psychology, maybe because
I never had brothers, and because boys tended to confide in me early on--I
remember as early as when I was 13 being a counsellor for male friends in
their family and relationship problems and a philosophical sparring partner
with lots of them. I was fascinated by their difference from girls.

And I've kept in contact with lots of those boys, over the years. And I went
to my 30th high school reunion recently and saw a several I hadn't seen since
then.

It all just confirmed my idea that those who zip toward maturity miss some of
the steps or learning or development or SOMEthing that they could have used
to be the strongest, calmest kinds of dads and husbands and centered adults.
Truly, some of the most stunning examples of maturity and reliability are
those who were goofy at 17, and clueless at 19, while some of those around
them had reached their plateau already at 15 and were ACTING grown, and BEING
mature in a more surface way. I don't know how much involves genetic package
and how much is the possibility that by self-induced maturity (i.e. deciding
"I'm grown now") one can turn off the process.

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/19/01 8:16:25 AM, jkkddmowery@... writes:

<< At 33, I believe that the animals/toys(real or plush) CAN talk at midnight
on christmas eve. >>

I'm guessing you know that this is a traditional Anglo-American
(pre-American/English) belief for real, that farm animals would kneel and
praise Jesus on midnight of Christmas Eve. And when the calendar was changed
(Gregorian reform? whatever, a couple of hundred years back), some resisted
that change BECAUSE they thought it would mess up which was "the real"
Christmas. They calculated "old Christmas" for years, and thought that's
the night when the animals could talk. Just for a minute. And they were
good Baptists, I'm sure, those cows and sheep and horses. No memorized
prayers or other papistry.

Sandra

Karin

Thanks to all of you responding about Santa. I love reading all your opinions and personal feelings regarding kids and believing.
One of the reasons I'm getting a little uneasy is because as the boys get older, their list gets more elaborate and expensive!
Here is an example of my kids Christmas list word for word:

Dear Santa,
Here is my Christmas list:

40 gb hardrive
2 sticks 256 mg of ram
Computer Case with motherboard with pentium 1 ghz processor
CD burner
a 5 1/4" & 3 1/2" built in floppy drive
a 3D graphics card with 10 mega bytes
10 packs of Harry Potter cards
a camera
a mini-video camera
razor scooter


This is my 8yo list.
I told them that was a very tall order for Santa and ds would be lucky to get one or two items on his list.
This is getting out of hand! <g>

Karin



(again - please disregard if you receive this 2 times)




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The Mowery Family

That's probably where I heard the story originally.

Last night, I was watching a program on either History channel or Travel
channel and they were discussing when the birth of Jesus actually occurred -
due to the placement of the stars(comet with a tail) and why the shepherds
would be out in the fields(lambing), they came up with April, 5 B.C.. They
also speculated that the Angels that told the shepherds of the birth were
actually family members that came out into the fields to tell the kin folk
that mom and baby were doing fine. The word for messenger was Anglo (or
something like that). The 3 wise guys(as Dana calls them) were thought to
come from Babylon - they were magi, not necessarily kings.

Emperor Constantine picked Dec 25th so that it would replace a pagan
holiday.

Karen M.

----- Original Message -----
From: <SandraDodd@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 10:46 AM
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] Re: Unschooling and Santa


>
> In a message dated 12/19/01 8:16:25 AM, jkkddmowery@... writes:
>
> << At 33, I believe that the animals/toys(real or plush) CAN talk at
midnight
> on christmas eve. >>
>
> I'm guessing you know that this is a traditional Anglo-American
> (pre-American/English) belief for real, that farm animals would kneel and
> praise Jesus on midnight of Christmas Eve. And when the calendar was
changed
> (Gregorian reform? whatever, a couple of hundred years back), some
resisted
> that change BECAUSE they thought it would mess up which was "the real"
> Christmas. They calculated "old Christmas" for years, and thought that's
> the night when the animals could talk. Just for a minute. And they were
> good Baptists, I'm sure, those cows and sheep and horses. No memorized
> prayers or other papistry.
>
> Sandra
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> [email protected]
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/19/2001 7:00:48 AM Pacific Standard Time,
ddzimlew@... writes:


> This is one of the things I find so charming about my son. He seems to
> have a kind of old wisdom, an intuitive sense about right and wrong and a
> maturity in some things I don't see in most adults I know. At the same
> time he believes in the possibility his stuffed animals are really alive,
> his favorite blanket can hear, and keep his secrets, and an ancient
> someone is living in the mountain ash tree.
>

My 14 yo and her 15 yo best friend still play pretend - with stuffed animals
galore. They can "suspend disbelief" and have a great time. I think that
their ability to do this is just amazing. The difference between them and a 7
yo doing the same thing is, I think, that they have a certain level of
background awareness that they are doing it, that the 7 yo wouldn't probably
have. Maybe.

--pam


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/19/2001 9:23:03 AM Pacific Standard Time,
jkkddmowery@... writes:


> The 3 wise guys(as Dana calls them) were thought to
> come from Babylon - they were magi, not necessarily kings.
>

I thought they were Zoroastrians (my husband's family is largely still
Zoroastrian) -- so I went to look that up and see if I was just totally off
or remembering that correctly. But the first website I hit was a Mormon one
in which it says that the three wise men were really from "the New World" -
come across the oceans to be there for Jesus's birth.

--pam


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 12:17:10 -0500 "The Mowery Family"
<jkkddmowery@...> writes:
> That's probably where I heard the story originally.
>
> Last night, I was watching a program on either History channel or
Travel
> channel and they were discussing when the birth of Jesus actually
> occurred - due to the placement of the stars(comet with a tail) and why
the
> shepherds would be out in the fields(lambing), they came up with April,
5
> B.C..

I saw a show like that at a planetarium once.

I've also heard that Joseph's "coat of many colors" was actually a
mistranslation of "coat with sleeves", and the Red Sea was actually Reed
Sea, and could have meant any of the marshy areas in that area.

Also that Cinderella's glass slippers were actually fur slippers, but the
word was mistranslated from the French.

I love this stuff.

Dar
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[email protected]

> Also that Cinderella's glass slippers were actually fur slippers,
> but the
> word was mistranslated from the French.

Did they have little noses and floppy bunny ears? What would that be in
French?

Deb L, forming a whole new picture of poor Cinderella.

Nancy Wooton

on 12/19/01 9:17 AM, The Mowery Family at jkkddmowery@... wrote:

> That's probably where I heard the story originally.
>
> Last night, I was watching a program on either History channel or Travel
> channel and they were discussing when the birth of Jesus actually occurred -
> due to the placement of the stars(comet with a tail) and why the shepherds
> would be out in the fields(lambing), they came up with April, 5 B.C.. They
> also speculated that the Angels that told the shepherds of the birth were
> actually family members that came out into the fields to tell the kin folk
> that mom and baby were doing fine. The word for messenger was Anglo (or
> something like that). The 3 wise guys(as Dana calls them) were thought to
> come from Babylon - they were magi, not necessarily kings.
>
> Emperor Constantine picked Dec 25th so that it would replace a pagan
> holiday.


Poor Constantine gets blamed for everything. <g>

From a website on The Feast of the Nativity:

No record is found as to the date when the Nativity Feast of our Lord began
to be celebrated as a separate feast. It is known, however, that in the
early Christian Church the Birth of Christ, Adoration of the Magi and
Theophany [western Epiphany] were celebrated on the same day, January 6. The
date of introduction of the Nativity Feast into the Church calendar was
different in all 5 Patriarchates (Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria,
Constantinople and Rome). The Church of Jerusalem was the last one to adopt
this feast in the 6th century.

December the 25th, was the date of a pagan festival in Rome, originated in
274 by the emperor Aurelian, as the birthday of the "unconquered sun"
(natalis solis invicti). Sometime before 336, the Church of Rome established
a commemorative festival of the birth of Christ, the Son of Righteousness.
The first evidence of the Nativity celebration in the East, as a separate
feast, comes from Constantinople.

In 381, Gregory the Theologian delivered his 39th sermon on the feast of
Theophany and called it the festival of lights, commemorating the Baptism of
Christ, the true light. He speaks of the Nativity as recently past and
reminds his audience that in the Nativity Feast they followed the star,
worshipped with the Magi, were bathed in light with shepherds, glorified God
with angels, took Christ in their arms with Simeon and confessed Him with
Anna. He continues: "Now, however, at Theophany, this is another event and
another mystery, the Baptism.¹

On December 20, 386, in his sermon on the martyr Philogonius, St. John
Chrysostom looks forward to the Nativity Feast as the Birthday of Christ and
the festival from which all the other come. He also mentions the visit of
the Magi as commemorated on the Nativity day. And then, five days later, in
his sermon delivered on the Feast of the Nativity, Chrysostom says that this
feast has been known to Antiochenes for less than 10 years, although it has
been known longer in the West.

It is also known that the separation of the Nativity and the Baptism into
two different holy days occurred in Egypt (Patriarchate of Alexandria) in
the second half of the 5th century, shortly before the false teacher Arius
died.
***
[me again]

The early church didn't consider the whens and wheres of Christ's birth
important, although the New Testament church included the Virgin Mary among
its members; she knew when and where she gave birth, and probably passed on
the information. That's why there's a church in a cave near Bethlehem.
Tradition holds that Luke, who records the event Linus recites in "A Charlie
Brown Christmas," spent time with Mary, essentially interviewing her for his
gospel. (Not being a disciple, he got his info. second hand.) Caesar
Augustus would have had anarchy on his hands if he'd demanded the entire
populace travel to their home towns in *December*; it had to have been
spring. The lambs wouldn't have been born yet, and no sheep would have been
out on the hills at night. (I think, though, that if you're going to
believe in a virgin birth, you might as well believe in angels, too.)

The date for the feast WAS chosen to coincide with winter solstice, and yes,
there was a Roman holiday for the sun on that day. If you've seen
"Gladiator," which takes place around 192, you'll get a good idea of what
Roman pagan festivals were like - it was Constantine who outlawed the
gladiatorial contests as barbaric, inhuman rituals. The church did choose
the same day, since the newly Christian populace needed something more
civilized to do, and created a feast to replace it. The hymnography
emphasizes the "Sun/Son of Righteousness," not the little baby away in a
manger.

"Your Nativity O Christ our God
Has shone to the world the light of wisdom
For by it those who worshipped the stars
Were taught by a star to adore you,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know you, the Orient from on High.
O Lord, glory to you!"
(Orthodox troparion for the Nativity)

Nancy

[email protected]

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001 12:36:56 EST PSoroosh@... writes:
> My 14 yo and her 15 yo best friend still play pretend - with stuffed
> animals
> galore. They can "suspend disbelief" and have a great time. I think
> that
> their ability to do this is just amazing. The difference between
> them and a 7
> yo doing the same thing is, I think, that they have a certain level
> of
> background awareness that they are doing it, that the 7 yo wouldn't
> probably
> have. Maybe.
>
> --pam

I think you're right. Your 15 year old steps out of one world and into
another. To my nine year old it's just the one world where anything is
still possible.
I like that. I wish I could do it.
Haven't tried in awhile, I guess.

Deb L

meghan anderson

<<<<an ancient someone is living in the mountain ash
tree.

Deb L>>>>

Maybe he's seen the Green Man?

Meghan :-)

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meghan anderson

<<<<I told them that was a very tall order for Santa
and ds would be lucky
to get one or two items on his list.
This is getting out of hand! <g>

Karin >>>>

Tamzin makes a list and gets one or two presents from
Santa (depending on the size and/or cost) from the
list. In our house she makes a list to give people
ideas for what she would like, not something to be
followed slavishly. Santa gets the same list that we
email to Granny and Grandpa. That way if the store is
all out of something (Baby Boo doll this year!) it's
not the end of the world on Christmas morning.

Meghan :-)

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[email protected]

> <<<<an ancient someone is living in the mountain ash
> tree.

> Maybe he's seen the Green Man?

Maybe. He's friendly, and even protective. <g> A handy tree to have
around.
Deb L

Sharon Rudd

Do you honor him with gifts (tokens)? locks of hair,
feathers, small food items?

Sharon of the Swamp


>
> > <<<<an ancient someone is living in the mountain
> ash
> > tree.
>
> > Maybe he's seen the Green Man?
>
> Maybe. He's friendly, and even protective. <g> A
> handy tree to have
> around.
> Deb L
>


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[email protected]

Dang, I hadn't thought of that. Do you suppose I should have gotten him
a solstice present? There's a bird feeder in that tree, does that count
as small food items? <g>
Deb L

On Fri, 21 Dec 2001 08:14:00 -0800 (PST) Sharon Rudd
<bearspawprint@...> writes:
> Do you honor him with gifts (tokens)? locks of hair,
> feathers, small food items?
>
> Sharon of the Swamp
>
>
> >
> > > <<<<an ancient someone is living in the mountain
> > ash
> > > tree.
> >
> > > Maybe he's seen the Green Man?
> >
> > Maybe. He's friendly, and even protective. <g> A
> > handy tree to have
> > around.
> > Deb L

Sharon Rudd

Yup

> Dang, I hadn't thought of that. Do you suppose I
> should have gotten him
> a solstice present? There's a bird feeder in that
> tree, does that count
> as small food items? <g>


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Nanci Kuykendall

>....due to the placement of the stars(comet with a
>tail) and why the shepherds would be out in the
fields>(lambing), they came up with April, 5 B.C..
>They also speculated that the Angels that told the
>shepherds of the birth were actually family members
>that came out into the fields to tell the kin
>folk that mom and baby were doing fine. The word for
>messenger was Anglo (or something like that). The 3
>wise guys(as Dana calls them) were thought
>to come from Babylon - they were magi, not
>necessarily kings.

>Emperor Constantine picked Dec 25th so that it would
>replace a pagan holiday.
>Karen M.

More accurately, Midwinter was picked to coincide the
birth of Christ with the brith of MANY, MANY gods
celebrated at the Midwinter Solstice throughout
history and many cultures. Persian Mithras is one
example.

St.Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople said in
373, 100 years after the birth of Christ had been
fixed at Midwinter, the the Nativity of the "Sun of
Righteousness" had been fixed there so that "while the
heathen were busied with their profane rights, the
Christians might perform their holy ones without
disturbance." This sentiment stemming from the days
when Christians were the persecuted minority.

That's me, heathen all the way, since heathen
originally meant the people of the heath, or the
people who live on the heath, referring to the Irish
by the Romans, and that is my line of descent.
;-)

Nanci K.

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