Dad, Did You Know They’re Pagans?

Prayer time tonight. Approx 8:30 P.M.. Here at our house.

Thomas pulls out his "Catholic Child's Prayer Book" that was one of his Christmas stocking stuffers...

Catholic Child's Prayer Book

...and he turns to the "Evening Prayers" page and asks me to read that one to him for tonight... so far so good...

Evening Prayer & Pagans

...but just as I start to read the prayer, he interrupts me...

"Dad, did you know they're Pagans?"

Uh. Uh.

What do you say to that?

My mind was thinking, "Did he just say penguins? How does he know the word Pagan? What has Suzanne been telling him?"

My chest, meanwhile, had gone cold. Maybe I stopped breathing momentarily. I had no idea how to react.

He took care of the next step. He got up out of his bed, walked to his dresser, and grabbed the "Celebrating Christmas" book that Kitty from our church had given him for Christmas.

Celebrating Christmas

Like a librarian flipping through the research book for just the answer you had asked for, he flipped pages and turned right to...

The Christmas Tree

The Christmas Tree.

I suppose when Suzanne read the tradition of the Christmas Tree to him, the fact that it came from the Pagans really stuck. And he figured the nice family pictured in the drawing was a family of Pagans.

The rest of prayer time became a side-by-side comparison of the drawings, with Detective Thomas attempting to determine whether the family praying the Evening Prayer was, in fact, the same family that had been Pagan Christmas Tree decorators.

He ended up determining that it, in fact, was the same family.

Pagans saying Evening Prayer?

Nothing wrong with Pagans, mind you.

At least I was able to avoid "Dad, what's a Pagan?" for tonight. That'll probably be tomorrow night's 4-year-old bedtime challenge.

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