Christmas & Faith | Parents discuss navigating the festive season with under 5s

Ho Ho Ho it's our Christmas Special 2024! This is the one where Emma and Elliot chat about the challenges at Christmas when you have a baby, toddler, or pre-schooler. Discussing everything from chocolates, Christmas films, presents, Father Christmas, traditions, Church, the Nativity story and more. We have a good laugh, have some serious conversation about faith, but also full of colds - so apologies for the coughs & sniffles! [I've tried to edit most out!]

Disclaimer: we do go into some faith conversation in this episode. If that's not your thing, then that's absolutely fine. There are time codes and you can jump ahead. Of course, it's just our perspective as Christians with a very liberal faith. We're not particularly religious or church-y. We're not particularly biblical or literal with a lot of that stuff. And we're not here to tell you what to believe! You do you. 

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Find parenting resources, Elliot's faith & spirituality projects and more on our website:
www.kairosmovement.org.uk/dontwakethebaby/

Unwind on sleepless nights to a wholesome mix of parenting stories, quirky humour, and cosy crafting. We’re not here to provide answers but to share our experiences, explore how parenting has changed, and build an online community of parents for mutual support.

A fun, honest and unscripted conversation between Emma and Elliot on non-judgemental parenting and millennial-based topics, as we relax on an evening attempting an artistic or creative activity. 

We are a project in partnership with The Kairos Movement and supported by The Methodist Church, of which The Kairos Movement is a part

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 4:10 Parenting Achievements
• 8:50 Father Christmas & Faith
• 20:45 The Nativity & Faith
• 30:05 Parenting at Christmas
• 41:10 Outro

Transcript

Ho, ho, ho! Welcome to the imaginary ice cave of the internet. You can tell it's the Christmas special because illness is going around and we have croaky voices.  Yeah, and the baby's been ill. It's been fantastic.  We were gonna record last week, but we had to postpone because it was just too much work.

Anyway, we're here now. As you probably know, this is a podcast exploring life as a parent with babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Hopefully you can unwind to our wholesome mix of quirky humor and honest conversation. We're just kind of a bumbling amateur podcast with plenty of Disney references and, you know, blah blah blah, all that spiel y stuff.

All the good stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you listen to podcasts over Christmas, Emma?  Um, yeah, I do, but mainly when I'm like, cooking or doing some menial tasks. Yeah, yeah. I always wonder about putting stuff out over Christmas, but, you know, I listen to as much stuff as ever, really. Yeah, and then I get annoyed when people stop.

So whenever you're listening to this, whether it's, uh, I don't know, Christmas Eve, or cooking Christmas dinner, if it's on Christmas Day itself, then I'm very impressed. Yeah, put ten points to whatever house you're in. But uh, whether it's the new year, or it's years in the future, um, Yeah, you're very, very welcome to the conversation today.

We'll skip over the, you know, I'm Elliot, you're Emma, we, we know this, we know this, but we'll get into a little factoid. I've got a couple of little fun little things to do at the beginning here. Um, I thought I'd say right up the front, um, I'm a bit of a grinch with Christmas, not particularly Christmassy.

Are you Christmassy, Emma? I'd say I'm pretty Christmassy. I'd say you're quite Christmassy. Yeah. I'd say I'm not the opposite to a Grinch because I'm not like excessive. You're not like a year round Christmas person. No, but yeah, I'm a pretty big fan. There we go. Thought a little question for you so people get to know us.

Um, what's your favourite like Christmas chocolate? Oh. You know like if you get a big box or any of the sort of, you can take it as far as you like in terms of. In, is it Quality Street? Maybe. I like the strawberry creams, and apparently that's an unpopular choice. I don't think that's an unpopular choice.

According to Facebook, people are no fans of that one. I think because it's very sweet. I like that. I like the orange. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't give me any of the ones with nuts or coconut in. Yeah, yeah. Or like, the, like, really hard toffee pen. Oh, yeah, yeah, and get rid of them as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not, not good. 

I would, uh, probably say, actually, I'm not a big fan of the Tubbs in general, to be honest. I think some of my favourite Christmas chocolates are ones that aren't Christmas chocolates. Like, After Eight's. I was gonna say After Eight was my favourite Christmas chocolate. Or, Terry's Chocolate Orange, love one of them.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But I think that's quite Christmassy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do you stand on the, the new flavours of chocolate orange that have come out? Are you aware of this? I'm not aware of this. There's other flavours? Yeah, yeah. They've brought out a whole range of different ones. One is just a milk chocolate.

Yeah.  Circle thing so it's like a chocolate orange, but it's not orange  Some people don't like chocolate orange.  I think there's like a variety of other flavors now My main thing is I just don't think they should do another fruit. That would seem sacrilegious like a chocolate apple. Yeah, I Don't think they do that, but that would be hilarious.

I would love that  Pomegranate yeah, I'm fine with all the flavors as long as they're not going to betray the orange and go to a different fruit Last chocolate I want to mention before we move on Um, we're quite a big fan of, uh, Lindor, those little chocolate ball things. Lindt chocolate, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Um, they're like, can be a bit pricey. So that's why they tend to come out at Christmas. Because you know, I'm a fancy boy. I like fancy chocolate. He's a fancy boy. Lily likes them a lot too. Yeah. We last had them. She kept sneaking over and taking them. There you go, some chocolate, uh, chocolate quiz. That's not a chocolate quiz, is it?

It's a chocolate something. The start of the Christmas episode. 

Ding, dong, ding, dong, it's Parenting Achievement Time. Oh, hello.  I've, uh, I've come carrying. Sounds like we're ringing the bell, you see. Yeah, yeah, but instead of carols, I'm just gonna tell you my, my issues. Oh, okay. Just tell you what's gone wrong this week. And then we give you money to leave.  Yeah, yeah, that's it.

That's it. So various funny things have been happening in our house recently. I'm so sorry. That's all right. I haven't coughed all day till this point. I know. 

We're back to the illness where we have to edit out all the coughs and sneezes. I've been talking for an hour to my sisters while I was multitasking. Did I cough once? No. This, this is the problem. I'm gonna blame your sisters. They always took my good energy. Probably lost your voice talking to them. Oh, we've had various funny, various funny stuff going on this week in our household.

We have obviously. Been dealing with the challenge of a newborn who's been ill and throwing up. Yeah, it's been horrible  I put a little insert in last week's episode just to update people on that But yeah, if you didn't catch that  as well as the like first few weeks had gone It's definitely been a big challenge since then with the newborn Illness going around.

Yeah, I mean, I think she's getting better now. She's drinking better anyway Yeah,  but there's been like funny moments as well with the challenges of having a newborn Namely, we've both been dropping food on lola's head. Yes  It's like why Why why has she got this stain on her top and i'm like, yep Dropped, uh, whatever I was eating spaghetti bolognese, whatever it is And although I did drop on my head too, but luckily I managed to get that bit off Because you know it's a very typical parenting achievement that with a baby you tend to eat one handed with a baby.

And she won't let you put it down. Which is obviously natural but it means you have to, and I'm not a coordinated person at the best of times.  Yeah, I think I'm the main culprit for dropping food on her.  Another achievement this time with the elder child. Um, you had a fun time, you did a, you made a big old activity for her to do one day.

You tried to do a construction activity. Like a construction site. So it's got like little diggers, um, and I got these little bricks from Amazon that like toy little rubber bricks. So it's like a big messy tray. Yeah, like a big messy tray activity. And then some old cereal had gone off, chugged that in. Um.

I was like, oh, I've made all these sheets. They're educational. I'm counting, like, how many trucks or whatever it is. You'd printed a load of stuff off. Printed a load of stuff off. You'd put a lot of effort into this. Laminated them. Yeah. Um, done stuff that she could do, um, play doh on to make different shapes.

You'd found in our dress up box some old hard hats. Yeah. You thought you could dress up in. Yeah. To do a whole kind of, you know, whole theme. Went for the whole theme.  Did she? Well, she did play with it. Just not at all in the way that I expected. The construction site turned into Anna and Elsa's wedding venue. 

And they were getting married so we had to make an aisle for them to go down. Um, not, so none of, none of the trucks were used at all. They're not touched, left.  They were just taken out because they were getting in the way of the aisle. Yeah, yeah. The hard hats were used. as baby cot to put her babies in.

She's such a girly girl. Such a girly girl. You've made her this like, great activity all around. You know, I'm sure a little boy would have loved it. Construction trucks and diggers. I thought she might. I was like, hey. We try our best to make sure she's, you know, a well rounded child, but know what she wants to do.

She wants to pray, little girly. Yeah. Like babies and weddings. People get married and there's babies in house. It was an achievement. You made an activity and she played with it in completely a different way. Yes, that's true. Yeah. Really, it's just very inventive of her. She saw it and didn't see a construction site.

I even made little signs that were like, construction site, warning, wear a helmet.  I think that's what makes it so funny. It's just the amount of effort you've gone to. I went to. And the way she was like, uh, no, I'm just going to play with my babies. in this thing you've made me. Especially because we've got like a newborn who's ill.

I was like, I was going all out to make this activity. It just, it moves me so much. Like I walked back in the room and like, you had this construction site and  like, she was like walking her, Anna and Elsa down an aisle. Down the aisle, yeah. and were like, they're getting married. And I was like, Oh, I see.

Right. Well, this is deviated quickly. Surprise. That's what we're doing.  I feel like Christmas is an opportune time for things not to go to plan. So do let us know with your stories what's happened with you this week or whenever you're listening to this in the future. I was gonna say in the past, but that doesn't really work.

Um, yeah, just get in touch and send us some stories and we'll share them on a future episode. Yeah. 

Stick on your favourite Christmas film and let's jump into some conversation today. We, we did a, we did a Christmas special You alright there? Yeah, I'm just gonna eat a spoonful of honey.  A spoonful of honey? To make myself feel a bit better. Right.  It's alright, you keep talking. Okay, I'm getting distracted by Emma eating a spoonful of honey over there.

For her throat. Um, but So we did a Christmas special last year which I recently re listened to and it was a good episode actually. I recommend looking back, looking it back to it. It's because I'm Licking the spoon of honey over there.  We had our guest, our friend Vicky on. We did. And we chatted all about kind of, particularly that time we had two and a half year olds and the kind of challenges around Christmas with toddlers.

So we won't repeat some of that. I mean we might touch on how Like, some of that's changed, some of those things. It's different now, like, we don't have a two and a half year old, but we do have a three and a half year old and a newborn.  So it's like, kind of different challenges. So we might touch on some of those later on in the episode.

Um, and we talked a bit about church as well, and what we do around church at Christmastime, but I thought this time to Do something a bit different. We could talk a bit about kind of faith and the nativity story and how we deal with that. So this is your warning, really your disclaimer that we are going to touch on and go into some faith conversation in this episode.

If that's not your thing, then that's absolutely fine. There's some time codes down below and you can jump ahead to where we get back into the parenting conversation. But, um, yeah, it will be still be parenting related about how we navigate some of Christmas and faith, the interaction there when you have a kind of children under five.

But it feels like it's Christmas time. It's often a time when people do engage with some church or Christian stuff. And so it seemed like an opportune time for us to talk a little bit about it. Faith and how our faith interacts with Christmas and how we're navigating some of the challenges of dealing with the Christmas story.

Of course, this is coming from our perspective as people with a very liberal faith. We're not particularly religious or overly churchy people. We're not particularly biblical or literal with a lot of that stuff. Because equally, if you're really into Christmas and church and faith and the Christmas story and hold that quite strongly as a religious person, then maybe some of the conversation isn't your cup of tea either and you might want to skip ahead.

Do you want to do Nativity first or Father Christmas first? Let's do Father Christmas first. I mean, like,  This could have been mentioned in the fail section, to be honest, but we've had a funny going on this year where it's the first year that Lily is properly aware of everything. Um, and we talked a bit about Father Christmas in our last year's Christmas special, but at that point we could fully control the narrative, really.

Oh yeah. Around what she understood was going on and she could understand words but didn't understand Concepts, really, like that. Yeah, whereas now we basically have a child and it's about Oh, we actually, you know, but Father Christmas, she also has influences from elsewhere. So for a little period we've had a while where she thought Father Christmas and Santa were two different people.

Yes.  Because obviously culturally a lot of people call him Santa, Santa Claus.  She thought they were two different figures. Like, two different people. Because I think we talked about Father Christmas at home. Yeah. And then, like, nursery and other places talked about Santa. And if she watches, like, an English TV show, like, Ben and Holly, he's Father Christmas.

Yeah. But a lot of TV shows are American. Well, one of her favourite Christmas ones is, I think it's Mickey and Minnie Wish Upon a Christmas, or Once Upon a Christmas. Uh, yeah, yeah. And he's, he's Santa, innit? Yeah. What, what's it in, in Bluey, when they talk about it? What is he there? I think he's Santa, isn't he?

He's Veranda Santa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of an American Yeah. kind of thing. I'm resisting. Yeah, we're, we're not a fan, are we? I don't know why either, it's a ridiculous thing to be silly about, but I know, I just, I have more of a problem with, like, Americanisms than I do with, like, faith. I'd be perfectly fine if we, like, didn't talk about Jesus, but I'd get more annoyed if we, like, talk about Santa, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. So yeah, so a bit of a mix up, a confusion going on. I think we've, uh, we've established now she's, uh, she's understood that they are the same person. Father Christmas is a fantasy, imaginary character  that we teach our children kind of is a real person. Like we let them believe that they're a real Well, we really feed into it, most people.

You leave them out for things to eat. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And that kind of muddies the waters a little bit then when if you want to, if, you know, like us, if you believe in, you know. a god and things that you want to say like, oh, Jesus and God are a real, it's a real person, that's a real, it's not a fairy tale, then that's kind of a bit confusing to be like, oh, well this story wasn't real, but this story, which is equally unbelievable, is real.

Yes, true. Do you mean? Yeah, I know what you mean. I think I don't have as much of a problem with it. Yeah, yeah. Um, because,  I always think it'll be up to our children whether they believe in any of the things we believe anyway. Yeah. And it's all about their own discernment. So, for instance, with Father Christmas, you eventually can realise he's not real, because you're like, oh, wait a minute, that writing looks rather like my parents writing.

And it seems odd that these things suddenly appear, and I've never seen, like, there's lots of things that maybe help you realise as you get older that he doesn't exist. Yeah. And I, I would. Want them to question that with face as well. Yeah, exactly. I don't necessarily have a problem with it I think I'm in a similar position where other than people blindly telling them like I wouldn't ever lie to them if they said is Father Christmas real.

This is the problem, isn't it? I don't really like the whole lying to kids thing Yeah, and that's kind of like an ethos thing that we have across everything. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong We do little white lies sometimes like I don't know that this place is closed today  Because we can't go You Yeah.

Um, 100%. Yeah. And like there's, you know, there's things with parenting, isn't there? All the time you'll resonate with this, don't you? What you aim to do and what you sometimes actually end up doing are completely different things. So often on the podcast, we, we do tend to talk about our ideal parenting, um, And that's why we have things like parenting achievement segments, because it's about like, well actually the reality, it never often works quite that way.

Yeah, I mean, I think I have a problem with where faith is presented as very literal, and therefore it seems very obvious. odd to then also say that, you know, Santa exists. To me, it's all fairy tales. It's all myths. Um, faith people might not like me saying stuff like this, but we'll get into it a whole mythos around Christianity, even if it's not a myth.

Yeah, yeah. Like. Do you know what I mean? There's parts that are more myth than I would say reality. Yeah, a bit like, you know, there's like what is St. Nicholas or whatever, like. Yeah, there's truth to him. I was gonna say, it's interesting how it's changed. So, recently we saw a Father Christmas at the, um, ballet Christmas party.

Oh yeah. Obviously nowadays you don't sit on Father Christmas's knee. Yeah. Um, you stand beside him and have like a little side hug. And Lily really liked seeing Father Christmas, actually. Um, but I was saying for a lot of children, it's very scary. So I was talking to my sister this morning, well, two of my sisters, and they recently went to see a Father Christmas at this like farm park place.

She wouldn't go anywhere near him, sat miles away. And, uh, Kirstie was saying, it's so funny. The man who was playing Father Christmas was like, I'm assuming you wouldn't like a photo. And Kirstie was like, Nope, don't think that's going to happen. Yeah. Um, and my sister in France, she's listening. So she's got a mention.

She was saying how her, um, Second youngest, he hates the idea of seeing Father Christmas. He likes only of presents, but he's terrified of the idea of him. Um, so I was thinking he's quite a scary character, clearly for a lot of children. The way he's like, he comes in your home, uninvited. Yeah, goes into your bedroom sometimes, like, it's a bit weird.

And like, yeah, it's kind of, and the unhelpfulness around the whole kind of naughty and nice and, like, using him as a fear tactic to encourage good behaviour. But I can see why. This isn't a judgement call. Like, when you're in a desperate situation, I see why parents go there. True, true, true. Yeah, yeah. It's a good point.

I know we haven't gone there yet, but I can see it happening if I was suddenly It's something we try to avoid. Again, it's this whole, like, what we would like to do and what does the reality look like. But, like, it feeds very much into that conversation we had. a few episodes ago, uh, with Nigel and Sue about toddler emotions and like trying to, and yeah, the whole kind of fear and shame thing around children and it doesn't feel like a helpful way to, that's for us personally, not a fan of using Father Christmas as a way to try and encourage good behavior.

It's a difficult thing to navigate, isn't it? It is. I was joking, I think Lily likes him because she knows a lot of old people from church.  It's why she used to like looking at the Queen. I think she thinks they're vaguely familiar looking.  From like, all the old people we know. Yeah, yeah. And that's not even getting into the, like, whole challenge around kind of the faith and,  you know, the distinction between fairy tales and reality.

But I would say, I think even now, Lily, has a really good grasp on what's made up, what's imaginary, and what's real. For a long time, this year, she's not believed in Father Christmas at all. Yeah. It's only since influence from her friends at nursery has kind of convinced her. And it's tricky, because as a parent, I'm quite a down to earth person.

I never really believed in Father Christmas growing up myself. I'm a very logical type of person. But equally, I want to encourage Lily, To be creative and imaginative and to have Whereas I think I definitely believed in Father Christmas growing up. Yeah. To me, a lot of the conversation comes back to this whole concept of like, is it real or not?

That's kind of the question that the kid is asking. They're trying to figure out, is Father Christmas real or not? And then it's like, well, is, is the stories that we tell around faith, is the nativity story, is that real or not? Did it actually happen or did it not? And.  I really like, I've told you this before, but like, that Bluey episode, people might be familiar with, because I think actually that question is kind of You haven't said which Bluey episode.

Yeah, I'll get on to it. Oh, right, okay. It's kind of an unhelpful, unnecessary question, like, whether it's real or not, that's not really the thing to focus on. The episode is, um, called, is it called Fairytale? Yeah, I think it is. I really should have looked this up beforehand. No, it is called Fairytale. It's the one where they, uh, do flashbacks into the 80s with Bandit's upbringing.

Fairytale. And his brothers and um, they're talking about fairy tales and it's, it's kicked off because Bluey's asked, you know, they're reading a fairy tale bedtime story and did it actually happen? Is it real or not? And Bandit kind of goes, well, It, you know, it has a message, the message is real, but it's difficult to say whether it actually happened or not.

And the kids are struggling to understand this, and so he tells this story of how him and Chilly met. But Chilly comes in and says, that's not what happened. Yeah, I don't remember meeting you as a child. Yeah. It doesn't seem plausible, but it's a nice story. Mm. And so they say, well, did it happen or did it not?

And he said, well, that's up to you. You decide whether it happened. The message and the outcome is kind of the same. It's like they say, there's like truth to every story. I did want to say there's probably some pluses about Father Christmas too. Oh yeah. It's like, showing he's like a kind old man who gives people presents.

Like, it's like a joyful little person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's only the good or bad thing that's a bit of it. Is it Netflix or Disney? Klaus. Yes. If people watch that, it's got quite a nice message. Hot take. I think that's my favourite Christmas movie. Ooh. I was gonna ask you that later. Oh, yeah. There we go.

That all, all the Grinch, like the modern Grinch. I really like the modern Grinch. This is another hot take. I think the modern animated Grinch is better than the original. I agree with that. And I was talking to some of the parents at ballet and they also prefer this Grinch to the odd Grinch. Very good.

Most of us were like, it's a better message. He's not just naughty, like you see his backstory a lot more. 

We're kind of, uh, picking apart a lot of the Christmas things here with throwing around words like fairy tale when it comes to Bible stories, um, but like, as Christians, I'm not, I'm not really that fussed about us sticking rigidly to doing lots of churchy stuff because there's so many different things going on over Christmas.

There's like 30 plus religious and secular holidays over like November and December and January. So I have no problem with people. Like saying happy holidays or season's greetings and stuff like that.  I only have a problem with X mas because I think it sounds nasty to say. It's just not pleasing to the ear.

Mm. To me it's another, feels like another Americanism. Well, maybe. Don't know. Like, uh, that's why I'm not a big fan of it. Ah. It's not really a Christian holiday anyway, so it's like No. You know. I sent, um, him loads of links while I was up late at night with the baby. Um. I find it very funny because a lot of people think I'm very radical with faith and like, I kind of, What's the word?

Rock the boat a bit. But people don't always know that you're very radical as well, and you're actually, you know a lot more than me, so actually you're much more capable of  Yes, of arguing. Picking stuff apart. Yeah, and I think I've always been pretty liberal. Yeah. So, um, some ideas you, like, are thinking about now, I've kind of always thought about.

My main thing is Christmas isn't really a Christian holiday at all. It's a Pagan's last Roman holiday, because they had two festively things going around that time. The fact we have lights on the trees, like, I think that's a Pagan thing, really. A lot of our traditions are adopted. And now it's like, oh, it's to do with them being the light of the world.

I'm like, we've just taken that. And being like, we'll make it into a Christian related thing. The whole light of the world thing, I mean that's all to do with like the winter solstice and the light coming back. But I mean, I'm fine for them to adapt it, but I want to, I think when Christians are very critical of people  taking over Christmas, I want to be like, well we took it over.

It wasn't our thing at all. People didn't used to celebrate Christmas. His birth wasn't considered Jesus wasn't born on 25th of December. No. It's just a bit ridiculous. We didn't, as Christians, I don't think we used to celebrate his birth.  To like, I say fairly recently in terms of Christianity, not as in like, you know.

Oh, there's loads of stuff like that where, like, the Victorians established so much tradition. Yeah, they did. And we've just assumed that, oh, well, we've always done this. We've always done it, yeah. Like, all the carols we sing, they're all like Victorian carols. That's their cultural stamp. And Christmas trees.

It's a German tradition they brought over the Victorians. Just do whatever. And I'm not, I'm quite pro tradition in that, I love a good Christengel service. Yeah. Like a carol service. Like a crib service. Like them all.  So far we've not taken our kids to a lot of stuff because they've been quite little and I just feel like And things are quite late.

Yeah, like a lot of Christmas services aren't ideal for taking kids to. Some of them try to be but even then like a 4pm crib service or something, still a bit late. It is. Well considering Lily's time and she's gonna get grumpy, it's gonna be in the afternoon and then If you're expecting her to be on her best behavior, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, so maybe in future years we'll return to doing some churchy stuff around Christmas, but at the moment we don't really bother too much. We go to what we can, but if it doesn't work with our schedule, we don't worry ourselves too much. We've been chatting a lot recently about the nativity story, um, and about how a lot of that is kind of embellished and not literal, or at least like for us a lot of it isn't Or a lot of it's symbolic.

Yeah. So they've purposely put certain characters in it. To symbolise what they're hoping for it to. Like a myth and a fairy tale. Yeah, true.  Did we want to do any more specific picking apart of the nativity story or not? Yes. Okay, that was a very resounding, definite. We were discussing it earlier and I wanted to mention it.

Yep, okay, go for it. I have a big problem that we put a lot of emphasis on the fact that Mary was a virgin. Oh yeah, yeah. Mainly because A, I don't think it matters. Yeah. Um, B, as we've discussed, it's a translation error more than anything else. She probably, that wasn't mentioned at all. Most likely a young maiden.

Yeah. And we've made connotations about what that means about her sexual stuff. When I'm like, it's frankly nobody's business. Yeah. It doesn't matter to me if she or wasn't. Yeah. Um, I get more annoyed that, I remember when I was growing up in church, they would like, always be like, the Virgin Mary. Like, it was her main positive trait. 

Was that she was this virginal person. It's a whole purity culture thing. Yeah. And like. In a lot of our liberal churches and things, we try to pretend that we're not high control religion, we're not evangelical Christians, we're not like, in America, where it's all quite cult y, and we're very much less cult y.

We still have a lot of this residue, which still kind of ties us to it, that is kind of purity culture. And also, I have a big thing that like, as a child, I didn't know what that word meant, but it was said so often, like, you'd question it, and I would think, like, If Lily asked me, oh, why is she the Virgin Mary?

I don't know how I'd answer that. Yeah. We've explained kind of procreation to it in the form of science, like there's an egg and a sperm. I'm like, how, how would I go about at this age? Going like, well, it's someone who hasn't done a certain thing. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't believe in it anyway, but a lot of people, I just think it is so problematic.

I don't mind if they mentioned it in passing, but it's a fact. It's like always put together as a phrase. And this is kind of why we're discussing this now because Lily's got to that point where she is getting a lot of external influence. So things like this, particularly around Christmas, when so much of it is so.

so common in, you know, just the language of what's being said around Christmas that it feels like she will pick up words, she picks, will pick up things and that will lead to conversations. And we're just interested in discussing how we will deal with all that. Yeah, because she's very interested in language and words at the minute.

I don't think I'm equipped to handle that question. There's so many things like that, but I think it just, it will be nuanced conversation over a long time, you know, like, Even if she asked about, like, angels, or asked about what does prophecy mean, or, like, there's so many things within the nativity story that are just said, said as if that's just the reality, they're just normal everyday things that we all accept.

I feel like at least in Angel, there's a tangible thing you can point to and go, that is an angel. I suppose. I think it's perfectly possible to have the nuanced conversation with children without it needing to be black and white, to be like, this is real and this is not real. Yeah. Um, and there's a temptation with kids to simplify it like that, that, you know, this is a depiction of an angel.

That's what it is.  And to me, that's, it's unsatisfactory. It reminds me, I was, you know, I mentioned it to some of our Christian group within the Kairos movement. It reminds me a lot of science at school, where in the early days of science, you know, secondary school, they teach you one thing. You move up several years, maybe you get to GCSEs and then A levels and depending how far you went with science and you discover actually, oh no, there's, there's like a deeper thing going on there.

And the first thing you were told was completely wrong because they were simplifying it so much. That actually it was just inaccurate. Even now, like, sometimes you'll say something to me about science, and I'm like, oh, well, I never did it to that higher degree. So I never knew that because I wasn't taught that.

I was just taught the basic level. Yeah, and I feel like we do that a lot with faith as well. We simplify it so much that to try and tell kids, and then it becomes very black and white. And then that's just kind of unhelpful going forward. Yeah, true. Like, my faith isn't black and white, it's very nuanced about which bits, you know, it's very difficult to pinpoint what I think is real and what I think is not.

I don't think a lot of it is literal. But I think we can start to have some of those conversations with Lily. Oh, well Lily already has a lot of them. At one point she really liked reading this little bible book somebody gave us for her dedication. And there's a picture of Moses parting the waves, and I was discussing it with her.

And she was going, well, that's not real. And I was like, well, it could be. It's Moana when she parts the waves. And she was like, well, Moana's not real. And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess. And then I didn't know what to say. But I was like, you know what? She's coming up with her own opinions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm fine for her not to believe it.

Yeah, we're not about indoctrination. No, I'm like, I'd like her to know some of the stories and she can make up for that. Because it's more, I think with a lot of Christianity, I think it's more the meaning you get from it rather than if you think it's real or not. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, is there any more heretical things we want to talk about on, to do with faith and Christmas and kids?

This is, this is a side note. I thought it was quite funny, I told that earlier. As a child, I thought Jesus was just a baby, um, because there was such a big deal made of Christmas, rather than, you know, his life. That as a child I was like, well he's a baby, how is he doing all this stuff? He only exists, oh so did you think he only existed as a baby?

Or do you thought like he did everything, all of the stories as a baby?  Like walked on water as a baby. The depictions I'd seen of him, he was a baby. And I was like, I don't think a baby could do all this stuff.  Maybe we make a bit too much of the Christmas story because as a child, I was a bit confused.

So yeah, it'd be fascinating to know if you are a Christian out there, how do you navigate some of the, you know, what goes on around that and how you talk to your kids about it? Or if you're not someone of faith, uh, how you found any of this conversation, I've no idea. 

Last time we talked a bit about advent calendars and that really didn't go well last year but this time worked a lot better. It has, if anything has worked too well. Now she picks out the item, um, because it's got a frozen advent calendar. So we haven't done chocolate this year. She's got one. She eats far too many sweet things anyway.

She's got one that gives her, uh, little, like, hair bobbles or hair clips to do with chocolate. Um frozen, but she takes it out looks at it and then puts it back in the advent calendar because she thinks she has to Keep them all in there till christmas  So she's going to look amazing on christmas because that's when she's decided She's gonna keep saying yeah, she's gonna put them all on together at christmas.

That's gonna be interesting. It's gonna be a strong look uh, we talked a lot about uh, Kind of overstimulation and routines and naps and all that kind of stuff because over christmas a lot of it goes out the window I mean, it's a bit easier this time. She no longer naps so we don't have to worry about that yeah, like In my mind, we have moved stages, really.

We don't really have a toddler anymore. We kind of have, I don't know what you call it, like, A small child. A small child who can kind of roll with stuff a little better. She can cope a little better out of the routine. I'm still really conscious of trying to make sure she doesn't get completely drained through just so much stuff going on.

And also, I'll be very thing that I'm like, she doesn't have to be perfect. She doesn't have to behave perfectly Yeah. That's going to be impossible. But we can like reason with her now. There's like, I feel like stuff has improved. Whereas before we were in the thick of just like, meltdowns that are just illogical and you can't do a lot about.

I mean, I'm not saying she still isn't illogical sometimes, but normally 50 percent of the time you can get her to calm down and be logical. And I mean, yeah, she can be illogical the other 50 percent of the time, but it's much better odds than it used to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And she, like, can remember people better, so it's a bit easier.

Yeah, um, yeah. So in all those things, it it's much easier. So I think in that regard, things Yeah, the challenges are maybe slightly less, maybe for our eldest, but we obviously now have the added challenge of having a newborn in the mix as well. So that's, we go right back to the beginning. Which is fine because, in some ways, she doesn't have a schedule.

Yeah. She's kind of a semi feeding schedule, and she's getting better with her gaps, but it's not like she has a nap at a certain time and we have to be home. No, no, in that regard, yeah, you're absolutely right. But the challenges then are around, like, Everyone wanting to hold the baby. Yeah, we're gonna be very unpopular So if people know we have a my family have an annual christmas party normally in a village hall because there's so many of us Yeah, bloody blah blah.

You should know quadruple lots of us. Yeah, um, there's lots of extended families. Oh, yeah There's great grandchildren now. Yeah, so like so my nephews and niece about only a few years younger than me. Yeah. They've all started having children. Yeah. I forget exactly, but I think if everyone were to turn up, um, and not everyone is always available every year, um, we get, it's like 30 to 40 people now.

And I mean, I know like five or six of them are babies,  but you get the idea. It's a big, a lot of people. Yeah. So we're going to be vastly unpopular because we're the only people out with a newborn. My sister Becky will be there with a five month We're having a hard rule at no one's holding the baby at the party.

Which I haven't informed them yet. Um, I'm going to inform them the week before. And if people don't like it, tough. But I know it will go down like a lead balloon. If you can hear from my terrible coughing throughout this episode, we've already got an illness.  Lola, our little baby's had it and it's been horrendous with her throwing up.

It's been horrendous. I've been terribly depressed because she kept throwing up on me. It sounds very superficial but like, the more problem is like she throws up but she's not drinking enough. Yeah. So like, we're trying to get her to drink enough in a 24 hour period. And then you feel like you've finally done it and then she's a big throw up and you're like, oh great.

Yeah, yeah. Um. And it's like after every feed. Yeah. It's just. It's just relentless. And she doesn't take drinking well, she cries, like. The last three days she has seemed to have turned a corner and is drinking much better again. Yeah. And she's only done like one bad throw up a day, so. But it's made me way more cautious because, I'm like, that's not even, it's not serious, I'm not worried about her well being.

But having to live with it for two weeks has been horrendous. And us being ill at the same time has been so difficult. So I'm like, if we could avoid, like, it's unavoidable that Lily has to go to nursery because we couldn't cope without it. But I'm like, I'm not risking with everybody at the party holding the baby, just giving more colds.

I think people will think you're giving, you're giving yourself an excuse.  That I don't think is necessary. Like, we have a newborn. We shouldn't need to justify that people, that people can't hold the newborn. Because that's just a com, that's just a thing. That's just like, we're going to a big event. We're not just going to pass our baby round the crowd.

I know it's family, but it's extended family. Yeah. Like, Especially some of them, I don't really see more than once a year anyway. In which case it'd be okay. You can't have a rule where it's like, Only these people can hold the baby, but no one else can. Yeah, exactly. Because it just becomes unfair, like, who do you pick?

Your family, you have so many sisters. Like, you just have to have a hard and fast rule, no one's holding the baby. No, exactly, because otherwise it just causes trouble. The other challenge that's kind of quite similar when it comes to families and things like that, we just talked a lot about last time, about gifts.

Um, and I know it's an ongoing challenge, just like, Getting too many gifts, really. Yeah. Our kids have so many toys already, they don't need more toys. But like, you get loads of gifts, and it's just trying to manage that. Like, we did a whole episode a while ago on consumerism. Yeah. And just, like, just we don't want a load of new stuff, particularly.

No, and I say, I've seen a lot of social media going around this, like, four gifts. One, something they need. Something to read. Four gifts from one person. No, overall. I don't know, but, like, that's the only gifts they get, but, like, these are the only main gifts they have. It's something to read, something they need, something that's going to be useful.

Clothes. To wear, yeah. Yeah. And I can't remember what the other one was. But maybe that's the fun thing. Like a toy. And I thought that was a really good idea. Because it does get excessive. And I'm primary example number one. I'm to blame in this household. Like. I'm the main spoiler. I see something, I'm like, oh they'll love it.

I mean, particularly Lily, because Lola has no interest currently other than my boobs. Um, so, you know, yeah. But people will buy Lola stuff and it's like, yeah, she's a baby. She doesn't need anything. And she's just been given a lot of stuff because she's only born a month ago. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Um, we're not even, we're just wrapping up stuff we've already got for, so that like Lily can play along that she's got toys.

We don't particularly have much advice about how to handle that. We really struggle with this whole thing ourselves. If you have any advice for us, we'd love to hear it. Yeah. But yeah, this is generally one, it's a challenge and we have no particular solution. No. It's because I'm not, I don't like being rude.

Like I don't like not accepting gifts because it's kind of people to get them, but. Yeah. Just generally like how, how are you feeling going into like our first Christmas as a family of four? I'm very excited. Lily's really excited for Christmas this year because she finally understands the concept.

Whereas before, she liked Christmas because you get gifts, but she had no understanding that it was Christmas. And she's very confused when we had snow. She was definitely sure. The day it snowed must be Christmas because that's what happens in all the films is that there's snow. One of the new challenges is that everything is just so much more chaotic now, like life is just more challenging generally because we've got an extra baby in the family, um, so Christmas is going to be no different.

If you're long time followers of my channel, kind of what we get up to. If you've listened to last year's special and we're listening to kind of what our traditions are. Emma shared a lot of what we get up to in that episode and like one difference is we're not having your sister Becky stay with us this year.

Obviously with a newborn in the house and she's got a young baby too. It's just going to be  crowded and complicated. So that's different. But, um, otherwise a lot of our traditions are remaining like fluid. We've done a nice new tradition this year. Uh, we went and picked our tree that's in a pot, and we picked decorations.

So like, Lily and Lola got one decoration each, which I thought was nice. That's a new tradition we've added on. Well, that is a thing we've done. I don't remember agreeing that it was a tradition. Oh no, I don't think we should get a tree every year, but I think we should get a new It's not a Trish tradition, is it?

Sorry. The point of a tradition is you do it every year. I was meaning the decoration bit, I think, could be a tradition. Okay. That you get a new decoration every year. Right, okay, I like that. That's fine. And we have our other tradition, we get a new gonk every year. Yes, gonks. I can't remember if we mentioned this last time.

I don't know if we did. Big gonk thing. This was the thing, uh, last time, you know, it was you and Vicky talking, so, um, I didn't really get much of an input on what we were saying. So we kind of got your side of the story, but then my side isn't. Really that interesting to be honest like just like I don't have a lot of traditions that I'm bringing to Christmas, especially so Um, i'm like I said at the beginning I'm a bit of a grinchy kind of person approach very similar story to the Grinch in some ways But I always like to try and enjoy Christmas, but like To me, it feels like since having kids, we've, it's all been a bit up in the air.

Like, we've never really come down and settled, like, Oh, these are the things we do at Christmas. These are our traditions. Because you're just constantly juggling the parenting thing. Well, I think they're still developing, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. So I feel like it'll be a few more years yet before we kind of settle on.

We've got this year is we're doing easy Christmas dinner. Because when people keep saying, what are you gonna have for Christmas dinner to me? And I go, sausages. And everybody laughs. Yeah, we've always been a bit wacky, haven't we? We're a bit eccentric. Like, it's been quite a number of years since we've had turkey for Christmas dinner.

We had goose one year. Yeah, we did. And duck and  various other things. But we're not big turkey fans. No, we like to mix things up. We do. Oh, Emma, it's a Christmas special. So I have a Christmas present for you.  It's not wrapped up. It's not, uh, it's not really a present cause I didn't buy it.  Um, but I thought  live on the podcast, I'd give you a gift.

It's an address book with addresses in. Yes.  Do people want to guess why I've been given this? Cause I'm writing all the Christmas cards as we, I say, as we speak. Like, that's what I've been doing this morning, trying to juggle that and looking after Lily. Lily, Lola. I've done it again. Yep. Looking after Lola.

I know my child's name, I do. And we've discussed this before. All my cards are from all of us. Yes. So they're from me, Lily, and now they'll be from Lola too. When he writes a card just from him, I don't know why there's a difference. Well, only when I'm sending them to you. Yeah, but mine are when I send them to you, they're from all of us.

Oh, I see. Is it because I see myself as part of the children? Is it a me problem? Do I not have an identity by myself? Or is it you problem? Do you not see yourself as problematic? I've never thought to add the kids in to cards that I'm sending you personally. No, I remember I always do. Birthday card, rolling.

Probably might not make it into the podcast episode, but I'm interested. Does everybody else add the kids names, or do they just do it from them? 

We better stop before our voices completely go. Yeah, I know. We've been tailing away. It was meant to be a fun episode, but it's kind of just been a coughing fiesta. Yeah. Yeah.  Fiesta I'd call it coffee. Yes.  I Don't know what you were saying fiesta fiesta  fiasco is 

Like coughing fiesta, I think that's better  Fiesta, it's a party of coughs. Yeah. Oh dear goodness me. Well, that's over I was gonna ask you what your favorite film is, but you said earlier. Oh, yes Klaus.  Yes favorite favorite Christmas film. I was gonna ask. What was your favorite childhood Christmas film? We didn't watch any Oh, well, that's quite sad, isn't it?

I told you I'm a bit like the Grinch.  We never watched any Christmas films. I don't think, I think I was about 17 before I saw my first Christmas film. Wow. Okay. Do you want to guess what my favourite Christmas film was? It's a classic. A classic. It probably doesn't help because I haven't seen many Christmas films.

You'll know it. Like Home Alone? Yeah, Home Alone was one of my favourites. We used to love watching them. Yeah. Now, I don't think I'd show it to Lily. It's got a lot of violence in it. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. Really found it hysterical as a child.  Hope you all have a fabulous Christmas or if it's past hope you have Had a lovely Christmas.

Have a good new year. Yeah, we'll be back in 2025 with more podcast episodes Yeah, hopefully not with a cough. Yeah, hopefully we'll have shaken this illness. Hopefully we'll Get rid of this, this illness by Christmas. Yeah. But I feel like it sums up We've only got a week. It sums up the Christmas kind of Yeah, it does, yeah.

Festive period perfectly. Everybody's ill. Everybody's ill, that's normally what happens. That was a tradition as a child, normally someone was always vomiting in the background. Yeah, traditions. There was so many of us kids, there was bound to be one of us that ill.  He has to cut out me coughing and then cut out me going, I'm so sorry. 

I just had more things for him to have to edit out. Yeah. And this is the one where we're recording it quite last minute anyway. So I've only got a few days before we want to release it. Well, I mean, you could keep it in. I can see how ill I am. It could just be a really long episode with no edits. How dedicated I am to doing this podcast. 

Sleep well, God bless, and remember, Don't wake the ba What were you gonna say? I was gonna say, Jingle Lo's Bell! Don't wake the baby! Shh!