I had heard He was a Jew, but I never knew His married name…

First, a bit of background:  Whenever we read our boys bedtime stories, we always tell them the authors of the books we are reading.  Of course, this was fine (and easy for the boys to remember) when all we had were Dr. Seuss books.

But, as time went by, our reading collection expanded, and eventually included one of the boys’ favorites, You Can’t Take a Balloon Into The Metropolitan Museum, a great story by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and Robin Preiss Glasser.  Remember the authors’ names, they’re important!  (And besides, our boys know them…)

Okay, back to the story.  We were watching the Charlie Brown Christmas movie, and there’s that scene where Linus tells the story of Christmas as they are all practicing for their play…

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

And when it got to that point, I paused the movie, because I remembered I had told the boys who Jesus was, and wanted to see if they could make the connection.  Okay, so Linus (and the King James Bible) are way more articulate than I am, but I said to Lucas and Ethan “Do you remember the man I told you about, who was nice to everyone, even when people were mean to him?”  And they both said “Yes.”  Then I said, “Do you remember his name?”

Lucas thought for a minute, and finally said, “Jesus Christ Weitzman!”