Thankful

With the holidays rapidly approaching, I find myself at a bit of a loss about how to explain certain holiday traditions and ideas to my incessantly curious two year old. 

Being thankful wasn't hard, we've been working on that one for some time.  She woke up yesterday morning and hugged my neck and said "I'm thankful for you, mother!"  (She's been calling me "mother" lately.  I don't pretend to understand why.)  She even mentioned her gratitude toward her father in spite of his stench.  He said it was something to the effect of:

     "Daddy, I'm thankful for you.  I can smell you."
     "Oh.  Well, thank you.  What do I smell like?"
     "You smell like gross."

I really feel like we've got the concept of being thankful in the bag, along with the fallacies of judging someone based on their aroma.  Luckily for me, she hasn't asked why we don't celebrate being thankful year round.

But there are some other traditions she doesn't quite get.  Like, why can't we have chicken for Thanksgiving supper?  What is "football"?  Who is Uncle David?  Can we go see the Pilgrims?  Does baby Jesus need a bottle for supper?  The list goes on.  She thinks of questions that I never could have imagined myself trying to answer.  The more I talk to her about it, the more questions she asks.  I'm so glad she hasn't discovered the "why" loop yet.  I'm just not ready for that.