2 by 2

And they came, two by two, to view the baby Jesus, and hang out with Shrek...

Sure, it would have been nice to have posted Christmas-y pics closer to Christmas, but the internet has not been cooperating. This picture of our unconventional and ever-changing nativity was too much fun not to share. I about spilled my coffee when I first saw the Ogre had joined the group in adoration. Well, why not ogres.. they have layers, right?

And why do we have a nativity set anyway? We're not Christian. We are trying to raise the kids with a good sense of God though, and an open-minded acceptance of all religious paths. We want them to have a good foundation of morals and values, an appreciation and acceptance of all forms of spiritual expression, and true belief in the divine. With this background we think they'll be able to find the religion that fits them best, and truly works for them, when they are old enough to know who they are. The details do not really matter - all religions are faulty by nature. Made by humans, and humans are not the perfect ones. Religion is just a tool we use to communicate with the Spirit, and so it is good to learn that all of man's religions have good and bad parts, true and false, etc. It's also important to learn that we do NOT have all of the answers, and we do NOT know what the true path is - only God knows that, and in my opinion, I think God is great enough to have made more than one true path. He made us all different, so, why not? We try to teach the kids a bit about everything as we come across it. They'll figure out the path that fits them best later, and, hopefully, will follow it truthfully while retaining a love and respect for other paths too. Anyway, a nativity set is a good, hand's-on (you better believe I got a set the kids can play with - clay breaks, but glues well too!) learning aid for Christianity. Ok, Shrek is a stretch... but we have to believe that god loves us all. Even ogres.