Memorial Day is stretching at our house. The morning of Memorial Day we went off to the local Memorial Day parade, which was an odd aggregation of JROTC, marching bands, local firms, and pre-schools. Lots and lots of pre-schools. I had no idea we had so many pre-schools in the area. Oh, and a handful of local politicians. We even had a fly-over to begin the parade: a C5 Galaxy and a couple of helicopters. There was a fellow in a Navy uniform in the back of one convertible. Someone said, “Hey, there’s a sailor!” and my four-year-old daughter started calling, “Hi, Sailor! Hi, Sailor!” My wife passed on a remark of her father’s: “Little boys play with soldiers and little girls play with dolls. When they grow, up, though….”

Then, that evening, we sat the kids down and put The Longest Day on the DVD player. We watched from the beginning of the movie to the first glider landings, and then had to stop. Tonight we continued from there through the assault on the beaches and “Der Fuhrer”‘s refusal to release the reserve panzers. Tomorrow we’ll wind it up.

We thought our boys should see what courage looks like, and why these men are worth remembering.

So yesterday we were praying as a family at bedtime, and my four-year-old daughter was praying for her friends. She said,

God, please help my friends to run fast, so the monsters won’t get them.

Which monsters, I’m not certain.

Out here in California, what many people have on their lawns this time of year is not snow, but Christmas decorations. And many of those decorations are reindeer. And these days, many of those reindeer are constructions of white wire studded with little white Christmas lights. The entire shopping district near our house is full of the things.

Now, we have boys. Two boys. Two young boys. As we drove through the business district last night, our boys—who have never seen a real gun fired—immediately decided that it was time to go hunting. BAM BAM! BAM BAM! There’s another deer over there! BAM BAM! From the sound, they weren’t firing rifles; they were firing small cannon. They don’t seem to understand that deer are not evil vicious monsters out to kill them, or that when you shoot one you want there to be something left that’s big enough to take home and cook.

Not that there’s anything worth eating on a white wire reindeer studded with Christmas lights.

Well, so then my three-year-old daughter got into it. BAM-BAM! she cried. In fact, she was more excited by the carnage (that’s what you get when you hunt deer from a car with bazookas, you know–carnage) than her brothers were.

So this is Monday, and every Monday we have my dad over for dinner, and after dinner Jane drives him back home. And little Mary went along, and as they drove along she looked eagerly for the next deer on the next lawn so that—BAM! BAM!—she could blow it to bits.

So what does my dad do?

Now, at this point there are a few facts you need to know. First, we live in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. These mountains are full of mule deer. And these mule deer come out of the mountains early in the morning, and eat the plants in my dad’s front yard. My dad has spent the last ten years in a running battle with the deer, and despite his watchfulness, care, and willingness to pursue, the deer are winning. He’s not tried actually shooting them; after all, this is a residential suburban neighborhood we’re talking about. You don’t do that.

But my word, was he ready to cheer little Mary’s foray into white wire deer demolition. In point of fact, he was spotting for her. There’s one! Over there! They’d have gladly gone through several more neighborhoods in pursuit of big game. (Next week, maybe, Jane will take them through that local shopping district I mentioned.)

So that’s the Christmas spirit at our house; how’s your Advent shaping up?

Simcha of I Have To Sit Down comments on gender differences. It’s all good, but here’s my favorite bit:

When my son was about 3, he wandered in while the girls were watching Barbie of Swan Lake (a movie whose narrative was a little too sappy, if such a thing is possible, for Tchaikovsky’s music). He stood there silently, mouth clamped shut, eyes broodingly fixed on the screen. After about twenty minutes, he croaked out, “This . . . is not good. I . . . don’t . . . like this.” Then he went in the other room to hit stuff.

Jen at “Et Tu” has proposed a group writing project on three things your parents got right. Here are mine.

1. There was no TV on school nights

Their theory was, if we got to watch TV on school nights, we’d rush through our homework. I suspect they were right. What was the long-term result? People ask me, “How do you have time to read so many books?” I read fast…and I don’t watch TV.

2. We had room to be kids

A lot of our kid’s friends are so over-scheduled by their parents that they hardly know what to do with any free time. We didn’t have this problem when we were little, and so we developed our imaginations. Jane and I are raising our kids the same way. Result? I’ve often seen David and James playing a video game—Pokemon, say—and one will say to the other, “Do you want to go upstairs and play a Pokemon game?” Which means, “Would you like to go up to our bedroom and engage in unstructured imaginative play centered on the general topic of Pokemon?” That’s right. They will turn off the video game console to go play make-believe. On their own initiative.

3. They each married the right person

Neither of my parents rushed to get married. My dad served in the Pacific in WWII as an electrician’s mate; after the war he got a EE degree and went to work for an electronics firm. I gather a lot of his work was for the Navy. My mom went to nursing school, and after the war she went to work at a hospital in Hawaii. They were both in their mid-20’s when they met, by chance, at a hotel there. Apparently they’d both been keeping an eye out looking for Mr. and Miss Right, and when they found each other, that was that. They were engaged two weeks later, and married four months after that, and had 48 happy years together before Mom passed away.

Having a good marriage is a lot of work…and there’s no reason to make it harder by rushing into it with the wrong person. Mom and Dad both knew what they wanted, and didn’t settle for less. And we kids had all the benefit of parents who loved each other, got along well, and didn’t split up on us.

Long term result? When I married Jane, we were each in our mid-20’s. Just this week we’re celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. God willing, we’ll both be around for our 50th.

I was away at this year’s Tcl/Tk Conference for the last week, in New Orleans. I’ll probably have more to say about that. But anyway, I’m back.