Holiday Traditions

I love the holiday season! Just think of all the coffee flavor choices only available this time of year! Peppermint mocha, Gingerbread, Pumpkin spice...Yummmmy.

As we prepare to embark on our family travels, I have a confession. My husband and I have been in complete rebellion for cooking Thanksgiving turkeys. That's right. We don't make turkey for Thanksgiving. Actually, to be honest we don't cook ham or turkey at all during the holidays.

Even at a brief glance, I realize that we will have holiday dinners at least 7 times in the next 10 days. That's a lot of turkey, my friends. (And we are glad to eat it :) Who knows how many more events we will attend in December?!?

So in an effort to fully enjoy our holiday gatherings, we will once again be saving our turkeys and hams (purchased at holiday discounts) to cook in January. And when we show up at your doorstep, we will be ready for your yummy stuffing, sweet potatoes and fried turkey - happily!
As for my menu plan? We're having lasagna.

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Do you ever wonder why different sources quote different statistics? Are you frustrated to hear that Christianity is in decline? I challenge you to read Bradley Wright's book called Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites ...and Other Lies You've Been Told.

Wright gives us a behind the scenes look at how survey questions are worded and how the phraseology affects results. Charts and graphs accompany many of his studies to show how we interpret data, sometimes in flawed ways.

For example, a group of people were asked to classify themselves using different religious labels. Instead of using the word Christian, they used the word evangelical. The results showed huge negative feelings toward evangelicals. Why? Because many people thought the word referred to television evangelists. The response to the question merely reflected person's feeling about television evangelists, NOT Christianity as a whole.

Hundreds of examples and explanations are reviewed in this book. Oddly, I was encouraged bythe misrepresentation of faith in our media. Maybe things aren't as bad as they seem. Could church attendance percentages be inaccurate? What about the number of people who convert from mainline Christianity to Mormonism? Maybe everything we've been told is only a foggy outline of the truth.

Next time you are watching your favorite news channel, steaming cup of java in your hand, step back from those opinion polls and ask yourself how the results may have been skewed.

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