Thanksgiving

Kate and I have had some intense discussion this week about Thanksgiving. Here are my favorites:

First, we were talking about how we aren't going home this year for Thanksgiving. "But MOM!", she said, "Grandma makes that special kind of chicken that I like!" I assured her that I too could make turkey, but she wasn't buying it.

Second, I was driving Kate to school when she started talking to me about God:

"Mom, you know when God used to be alive?" she asked. I didn't, but it was early and I thought it best just to play along with a undecided "uh huh."

"Well, when God used to be alive, these people wanted to kill him and so they put him in a room with a big circle thing on it and they crushed him with it and he died. But then, someone moved the circle and he lived again! So, Thanksgiving is when we celebrate that God died, but on Easter, it's for when he was alive again."

To translate for you kid-speak novices, Kate was thinking of that picture in most Bible storybooks with the stone that was rolled in front of the grave and then rolled away by the angel. Somehow, she's turned that into some sort of crushing.

"That's pretty close Kate. Actually, at Easter is when we remember Jesus dying and rising again, so you definitely got that right. But Thanksgiving, it really doesn't have anything to do with God exactly. It's a celebration of when America was founded and being thankful, to God, for the things He provided."

"Oh."

Indeed.