Happy Birthday Jesus!

I was planning on writing about how Christmas is pretty much a Christian cover up of the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, which of course it is, and on how traditions we do not even know of still affect us everyday.  Case in point, there are tons of crypto-jews in the hispanic world that still follow jewish traditions even though they converted to Christianity centuries ago.  For example I have friends that cover all the mirrors in their house when someone dies, know of families where eating pork is still considered a "sin," grandparents that freak out if the boys are not circumcised, etc...

However, I decided to write instead about the creation of yet another Christmas tradition in our house.  Last year we were going to my mother's house for Christmas dinner and decided to go to get an ice cream cake for desert.  Once we had picked out the cake my son decided that since it was the kind of cake that was used in birthday parties we had to use it for a birthday.  We, my wife and I, tried to explain to him that the cake wasn't for anyone's party but rather it was for the Christmas dinner.

Soon we realized, prodded by a recalcitrant child, that in a way, the cake was for someone's birthday, namely Jesus. So we had the completely baffled store clerk write "Happy Birthday Jesus" on the cake.  That in itself is, I think quirky enough, however nothing is ever that simple during family celebrations.  When we got to my mom's house she wasn't there and we did not have keys to get into the house.  So there we are waiting for her outside the house with a soon to be melting ice cream cake when her next door neighbors come out.  We had to ask them to put the cake in their refrigerator since we had no idea when my mother would come back.  This they did, but when my mother arrived and it was time to get the cake back they came out and returned the cake but not before looking at what was written on it.  Our neighbors, much like the store clerk, were baffled by our cake.  See everyone pretty much knows that my family is composed of relatively irreligious agnostic people and this cake on the surface screamed something like evangelical christian on it.  The neighbors look at it, read the felicitation out loud, looked at us, mumbled something, and left.

Afterward we had dinner and had some cake.  Having the ice cream cake was a great success.  Which is why this year while we are in california with my mother-in-law her husband, and my sister-in-law we decided to reprise the Jesus cake.  My sister-in-law and I went to the supermarket earlier and asked for an ice cream cake with the same inscription, "Happy birthday Jesus."  The girl behind the counter acted like our request was a completely normal request and went to the back.  As soon as she was out of sight we heard the entire back of the store laughing out loud.  Jesus cake is a success.  I think Jesus, be him god, an enlightened human being, or just a cool dude, would approve of our using his name in silliness that makes people happy.  So Jesus this shout out goes out to you.  Happy birthday dude.

By the way, do you readers out there have any silly Christmas celebrations?  Please share them bellow and make my Christmas more fun.