Walking home from the park, Joe spots a nativity scene.
Joe: OOOOH, LOOK MOM! A NATIVITY SCENE! But I don’t see Jesus!
Me: He’s right there, honey. He’s the baby in the manger.
Joe: That’s not Jesus! Jesus is white!
Me: *full body tenses as I worry and wonder what to say, and what not to say, and impulsively I choose:* Actually honey Jesus was actually from a part of the world where people typically have darker skin than us, but then hundreds of years after his birth, people started to paint and draw Jesus with lighter skin, perhaps to enforce a caste system, and we started to have that image of lighter skinned Jesus in our minds because Jesus was in fact a real person, honey, but he has since grown beyond the actual person to a myth, a projection, something we’ve created as a culture, something that changes as WE change —
Joe: I mean his blanket isn’t white.
Me:……….
Joe:……………….
Me: Yes, yes, you’re right, that baby Jesus’s blanket is not white
Joe: (moving on completely) HAVE A HOLLY JOLLY CHRISTMAS, IT’S THE BEST TIME OF THE YEARRRRRRRRRRR