favorite toys 2

Here are some more of M's favorite toys....well they were until last week when the big train set arrived! We bought the imaginarium one that has a table included. So far its gotten a lot of play time. Hopefully it will be used for years to come.

I want to make a response to my friend's post about Christmas. I think as Canada becomes more and more multi-cultural, and also more secular, this is a question many parents face - not just us Baha'i moms. I guess I never had a situation where we didn't have Christmas as my extended family always celebrated, and we got to participate. There's nothing against that in the Baha'i teachings.

Anyways, My response to Ms. Mudspice, is that I find I have to enjoy aspects of the Christmas season for pure sanity, and I think this has helped me deal with my whole winter issues. I mean Christmas is Dec 25 for a reason - not that its exactly Christ's birthday, as we all know, but a day that was celebrated by other cultures for who knows how long, and they just made it Christmas when those people converted..(.Ah, excuse the most knowledgeable and detailed history lesson. I, obviously don't know much about the topic...)

But my point is that people living in cold places need a party in the dead of winter... Baha'i or, pagan,  Christian, or Atheist. Its dark, and cold and we need to huddle, bond together, light fires and candles and eat special foods that we've been saving all year (like copious amounts of  eggnog) we need to add some sparkle to these days and celebrate in the dead of the dark days. I've been making hats and mitts for friends and giving them to them at any day of the season. Gift giving is never a bad thing! Call it solstice, or seasonal festivities or, my favorite "Winter love". My attitude is to take the best of what this season has to offer us, and enjoy it with my friends, some of whom are religious in their celebration of christmas and others who do it for other reasons. All  have to say is from the time we started making gingerbread men, lighting fires, drinking eggnog and visiting friends with gifts, the whole winter thing really doesn't feel so bad. And we've got february to look forward to - Ayyam-i-Ha, Here we come!

Anyways, thats my philosophy, for what its worth. I've been buried in studying and its near killing me, but m taking a break after this one... wish me luck!