So on Christmas Eve my family decided to attend the 5:30 PM service at church, for basically 3 reasons. First, the next service started at 7, which is typically when Pumpkin gets her bedtime bottle and lays down, and we wanted to keep things as close to schedule as possible for her. Second, the 7 PM service was a candlelight service, and Pumpkin's arms are usually about 10 inches long UNTIL she sees something she wants, then they turn to rubber and can stretch nearly a quarter of a mile.You think I'm joking. I'm not.
Sweetie and I didn't want her getting in her head that the pretty fire would be something she wanted to grab. There were no candles in the pews at the service we attended.
The third reason was that the 5:30 service was specifically geared toward kids, and we thought Kiddo might get a little more out of it.
As part of worship, there were 3 wrapped "Christmas gifts from God" at the front of the sanctuary. At different times in the service, the pastoral intern would ask for a child volunteer to open one, then he'd do a little sermonette on what was inside. The three gifts were actually words--Joy, Hope, and Peace.
Kiddo thought it was all quite cool, though when the intern finished his talk on "the peace of God," Kiddo looked puzzled.
He turned to me and whispered, "why was he talking about the Pizza God?"
It was all I could do to keep from guffawing right there.
But wait, the story continues.
This past Sunday morning, we were back in church. For any non-Lutherans reading this, most Lutheran worship services end with a call and response between the pastor and congregation. The pastor says, "Go in peace, serve the Lord" (or a variation thereof), and the congregation responds with a rousing "THANKS BE TO GOD!" Supposedly as an affirmation of the joy of serving God out in the world, but when I was a kid it was mostly out of the joy of knowing I was about to eat lunch.
So this past Sunday, Kiddo started laughing after we all said "thanks be to God" at the end of the service. That cute, uncontrollable 5 year old belly laugh. I asked him what was funny, and he responded:
"I said, 'THANKS PIZZA GOD!'"
It's too bad I couldn't tell him how funny I thought that was, because if he had ANY idea, he'd do it every time and I don't want that.
But it was pretty freakin' funny.
LH
