Shinto Willow

Each December, any blended family must inevitably confront the question, "In what religious tradition will we raise our golden retriever?" So first, we exposed Willow to her Jewish side by letting her watch us light the tiny $10 menorah from Target. She seemed intrigued enough that she avoided jumping up on the kitchen table to like it. This was followed by the eating of the Hanukkah gelt, which we'd actually purchased for the presidential candidate themed holiday party to serve as the Ron Paul appetizer (y'know, because of his love of the gold standard.) Associating paleo-ish Ron Paul with Jewish tradition perhaps felt not quite right, but Willow seemed more miffed that we couldn't share any of our chocolate with her.

Then she traveled north to visit her Archer grand-owners for a celebration of Christmas. This was all somehow so exciting -- tree! pine needles from tree to put into her mouth! terrifying plastic Santa Clau on neighbors' lawn to bark at! stacks of presents around it which can double as a homemade golden retriever agility course! -- that she managed to inflict diarrhea on herself. But she does approve of the numerous special dog cookies that she received from friends and relatives and the new Kong Wobble that she got as a present. If she were, like the heroine of a popular young adult novel, forced to try to pick one religion for herself, I don't know which one she would settle on.

Fortunately, however, Willow is nothing if not an outside-the-box thinker. (Though she hastens to add that she does sometimes like to stick her head into empty J. Crew boxes and sniff around in them. In fact, if you have some, feel free to send them her way.) And so she has apparently settled on... Shinto ancestor worship... which slights neither of us! Yes, she has discovered a pillow on my parents' couch with a picture of one of her distant ancestors, Am. Can. Bda. Ch. Cummings' Gold-Rush Charlie. She is quite content to stare at it for hours on end while she's relaxing on the sofa. And thus our clever girl splits the difference between her two divergent religious backgrounds and offends neither of her humans!