Inquiring minds want to know

We were on out way to shop for YaYa’s Christmas gifts for the family. The new set of questions began firing from YaYa’s inquisitive mind.

“Mom, did you know that Jesus’ Birthday is on Christmas?!”

The conversation went from Jesus’ Birthday to gift giving. I fired back questions to see what his view might be.

I asked him, “Why do you think that people exchange gifts on Jesus’ Birthday?” YaYa didn’t know exactly and I admitted that neither did I. He thought about it for a few minutes and it was decided that the gift giving was a way to celebrate Jesus’ Birthday (since he was not physically present to receive gifts). We were both satisfied with this idea.

“And Santa? How does he fit in?” I probed.
That was the easy one. YaYa said that Santa rewards people for being good, just like Jesus wants us to be good people. Of course his theory didn’t stop there. It was an interesting view, which I suspect might be slightly influenced by the Tim Allen movie, The Santa Clause. According to YaYa, someone “decides” that they want to be Santa and they have the job for a while. Then someone else takes on the job.

Well, from there the questions took on a new direction. All sorts of questions spewed forth.

Upon seeing the freeway signs, YaYa asked if Oakland or San Francisco was closer to us. That lead into the topic of football, and he began asking about which teams were better.

We talked about the difference between college and pro football teams. Naturally, that led into discussion on college and football player’s “education.” We talked about how players who were at college on football scholarships didn’t actually study “football” but pursued alternate careers so that they would have something to take them beyond football.

The questions finally settled into careers and what careers people went to school for and which ones they didn’t. Which careers make money and which ones don’t make that much money.

YaYa thought that he would want to sell food when he grew up. I asked him if he meant at a grocery store or at a restaurant. “Which one do you go to school for?” he wanted to know. When I told him that a chef would go to a special cooking school, he wanted to know if a football player could go to school to be a chef.

After all of these questions, YaYa said that he didn’t know yet what he wanted to learn about in college, but he was pretty sure that he wanted to play football or baseball.

Oh, his head is so full of questions. These are just a few, of the many things, that his inquiring mind wanted to know. It’s a great thing, but exhausting too. We *did* manage to find some time, in between the questions, to find a special gift for everyone on his list.