Happy Independence Day (Whatever that is)

We were having our family "What's on Schedule This Week" on Sunday-- and believe me, since it's the end of term, there was a lot-- when our discussion turned toward Friday.

"Do you know what Friday is?" I asked Thing One and Thing Two. "I'll give you a hint: the date is July 4th."

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" said Thing One excitedly. "I know this answer! It's on the tip of my tongue."

Thing Two had no answer. He waited patiently for his older brother to come up with it.

"Is it the day that the Civil War ended?" he asked. (We've been talking about the American Civil War recently. Don't ask me why. It's not as if it came up during school.)

When I told him no, it wasn't that, he had a few more guesses, none that were even close.

I finally put him out of his misery and told him that it was the day that the U.S. decided it wanted to be independent of England. This discussion is always tricky, because it leads to the inevitable question of why we live here in London if Americans want to be independent of England.

So how did we celebrate Independence Day yesterday? I'm sorry to say, not at all. I completely forgot to mention it to them. But don't tell U.S. Immigration: they might take away their American passports if they found out we forgot to celebrate July 4th.