{"id":226,"date":"2011-12-26T18:14:17","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T02:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/?p=226"},"modified":"2011-12-26T18:14:17","modified_gmt":"2011-12-27T02:14:17","slug":"i-saw-mommy-deconstructing-santa-claus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/2011\/12\/26\/i-saw-mommy-deconstructing-santa-claus\/","title":{"rendered":"I saw Mommy deconstructing Santa Claus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the holiday season upon us, Santa Claus has been busy.\u00a0 He&#8217;s been working at the mall, smiling on billboards, clinging to windows and perching on treetops.\u00a0 With nostalgia in the air and family on our minds, my wife and I have also been busy sharing our childhood experiences of Christmas.\u00a0 The similarities and differences in our experiences of this holiday got me thinking.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t grow up believing in Santa Claus, at least in the literal sense.\u00a0 I was taught from an early age that Santa Claus was a symbol of everything we do and feel surrounding the holidays.\u00a0 To my parents, this was both a matter of honesty and an opportunity to discuss the importance of everything Santa embodied.\u00a0 Christmas was always a big deal for my family, and Santa was always present along with the Muppets Christmas album and our beloved plastic tree (evergreens are hard to find in Florida).<\/p>\n<p>My wife grew up believing in Santa Claus, and she firmly believes her childhood Christmases were more meaningful as a result.\u00a0 She waited for reindeer, listened for Santa, and is grateful to have grown up believing that\u2014at least once a year\u2014magic could exist.\u00a0 Belief in Santa Claus was a way for her to experience a sense of wonder and possibility that can become difficult to sustain in adulthood.<\/p>\n<p>Do these experiences represent distinct epistemologies passed onto us by our parents?\u00a0 Does Santa Claus tell us something about what kind of knowledge we value?\u00a0 Let us know what your family&#8217;s traditions\u2014by no means restricted to the few I have mentioned\u2014have taught you.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy your holidays, everybody.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the holiday season upon us, Santa Claus has been busy.\u00a0 He&#8217;s been working at the mall, smiling on billboards, clinging to windows and perching on treetops.\u00a0 With nostalgia in the air and family on our minds, my wife and I have also been busy sharing our childhood experiences of Christmas.\u00a0 The similarities and differences&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/2011\/12\/26\/i-saw-mommy-deconstructing-santa-claus\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3352,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[99444,81606,99445],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-holiday","tag-santa-claus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions\/227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}