It's supposed to be a family time, the holidays. In the spirit of those heartwarming get-togethers, I bring you:

Relative Quotes

Searching for some New Year's gifts in a local bookstore, I was intrigued by a book about the nature of friendship and immediately thought of my mother's reaction to a recent bridal shower she'd attended. My mom is not a cold person by any stretch of the imagination, but friendships, for her, have been tossed and turned a great deal by the fact that the only constant in life is change. She took in the girl-to-woman proceedings and casual cute initiation rites with some bemusement, commenting later on that, "Granted, I haven't held on to the friendships I've had with childhood friends, but I didn't know I was gonna be joining the Ya-Ya Sisterhood when I came for the brunch."

Such is life, sometimes.

Life can also occasionally consist of trying to encompass a large, complicated part of it into one easily understood truism. My husband, statistician that he is, tried to encompass all of Christianity in this way on the 24th: "90% of it is saying kaddish for Jesus, and the remaining 10% is wishing he'd come back." Yeah, honey, tell that to all the folks who are commemorating the day of Christ's birth. If religion and its mysteries were that easy to quantify, we'd all be of one religious denomination.

There also wouldn't be as many wonderful movies such as Lilies of the Field, which we watched last night. Watching the nuns work their guilt trips on Sidney Poitier's character, Homer Smith, was a kick, and it was a movie that even the little guy wanted to watch. It soon became yet another lesson in "watch what you say around the child", as the little guy watched Homer finishing up the chapel and writing his name in the cement holding the crucifix atop the small tower next to the chapel. "He wrote his name up there, Mom?" the kid asked.

"Yes, he did, honey," I said to him.

"Is that a lower-case T up there, Mom?"

"I think so," I said, thinking he was talking about the "T" in Homer Smith's name. Then I stopped and thought about it. That "T" in the cement wasn't lower-case...

"Is that a lower-case T up there?" the little guy asked again. And then I understood.

On passing the large crosses off of I-10 in Baton Rouge one time, Dan referred to them as being "lower-case Ts"...which is what they are shaped like.

I was torn between laughing my head off and tearing Dan's head off for not watching what he says. Instead, all I could say was,

"Uhhh, yes it is, honey."

Anybody got a good starter course on world religions for five-year-olds?

I think I'm gonna need it.
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Oh!!!!...Mominem has a good shout-out to all the volunteers from Christian organizations giving their all to helping rebuild New Orleans. On Christmas Day at our synagogue, we met a couple of Jewish groups taking time out at our Chinese food and Bingo dinner from doing the same.

Bless them all...the ones who have come and the ones yet to come.