Break?

For some reason, we have never taken a Christmas break. Now, before you call me un-American, un-Christian or both, hear me out. We do plenty of fun stuff in December. We also focus even more heavily on Christ than we do in the other months--mainly on the fact that God made a promise, and God kept a promise ...in His time. I like to point out that fact to my kiddos because I think as Christians is can be hard to hang in there for the month or two or twelve that we pray for something. Imagine how long the Jews were waiting! Boy, that measly year looks like a drop in the bucket, doesn't it? We've established that I am still very much a Christ-follower. I am also still a proud American citizen, though I will admit that I place that designation firmly behind my status as a Child of the Living God. This rankles some people, who see the two as one in the same. Sorry if you're one of them; we can agree to disagree. So why, why do we not take a Christmas break? Because we like school. We really do. No joke. My children will literally ask when we're going to do school if they see the sun creeping too high in the sky on any given day. They feel like they'v emissed something valuable in a day if they aren't read to over lunch. They also can't wait to listen to the pieces featured in "Story of the Orchestra." This is what we do. For them, it's life. Not school, but life. You don't actually take a break from that, do you? This mindset is totally foreign to most traditional schoolers. To tell the truth, it was totally foreign to me when I was a child. There would have been no way I'd have traded in my Christmas break. If someone had even suggested it, I'd have no doubt that that person insane. But here I am, on December 15, planning out next week's school. It looks like a good one. We're studying Benjamin Franklin, and reading "Johnny Tremaine" with SL. We're also doing some fun stuff with "Beautiful Girlhood," a unit study, and Atticus will be notebooking with WP. I've got a few educational videos planned, and Jo will keep flexing those math muscles with some QM Math drills. I've got a whole day planned for a craft party with homeschooling friends. That's Christmas-y ... but it still counts as school. So, who needs a break? Not us. We'll give it a rest Christmas Day, and probably the day after. But then we'll be back at it. Homeschooling is like breathing. It's just what you do.