Howie Chackowicz

Well, it all began at Christmas two years ago when my daughter was four years old.

And it was the first time that she had ever asked about what did this holiday mean?

And so I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus, and she wanted to know more about that.

And we went out and bought a kid's Bible and had these readings at night.

She loved them, wanted to know everything about Jesus.

So we read a lot about his birth and about his teaching, and she would ask constantly what that phrase was.

And I would explain to her that it was, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And we would talk about those old words and what that all meant.

And then one day we were driving past a big church, and out front was an enormous crucifix.

She said, who is that?

And I guess I'd never really told that part of the story.

So I had this sort of, yeah, oh, well, that's Jesus.

And I forgot to say the ending.

Yeah, well, you know, he ran afoul of the Roman government.

You know, this message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities of the time that they had to kill him.

They came to the conclusion that he would have to die.

That message was too troublesome.

It was about a month later after that Christmas, we'd gone through the whole story of what Christmas meant, and it was mid-January, and her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools.

So Martin Luther King Day was off.

So I knocked off work that day, and I decided we'd play, and I'd take her out to lunch.