Tis the Season

I was congratulating myself this morning that my children were no longer whining and filled with Christmas envy: I can chalk this up to their successful immersion in Jewish activities or to the Chanukah bonanza they reaped. I try to avoid anything too Christmassy, especially with the older one, who can develop fixations and obsessions very quickly--we've often felt like the old vaudeville routine, where the person has to avoid saying "Constantinople" or the other person goes into a hypnotic trance ("Slowly I turned, step by step....").

So today we went to the Vanderbilt Planetarium, and I'd checked the shows and times and everything, and I thought we were off to see some Discovery of the Planets thing, and we settle down in our comfy chairs, and we hear the geek doing the voiceover say "And now for our special holiday presentation....Star of Wonder!" And it was all about the Star of Bethlehem and what the true astronomical phenomenon could have been (answer: nothing fits, exactly, unless it was an unusual grouping of planets that the Magi, as astrologers, would have been aware of, even if they couldn't see it). On and on, pictures of Santa and reindeer (my daughter said, "See, Santa really is real!" and my son said, "No, it's just for decoration"). Fortunately, the oldest was too cranky to get too obsessed and spent the whole time afterwards whining that she was hungry and wanted Chinese food.

Feel like I've dodged a tinsel bullet....