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Father Christmas makes his way through the bar after a small-town Parade of Lights (of which more later). No, that was Santa on the fire engine. Different demigod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Father Christmas makes his way through the bar after a small-town Parade of Lights (of which more later). No, that was Santa on the fire engine. Different demigod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Father Christmas makes his way through the bar after a small-town Parade of Lights (of which more later). No, that was Santa on the fire engine. Different demigod.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-1263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-yule"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-kn","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3578,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3578","url_meta":{"origin":1263,"position":0},"title":"Father Christmas in the Wild","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Just to put you in the holiday mood. You don't think that he just appears out of nowhere, do you? Want more?","rel":"","context":"In \"Yule\"","block_context":{"text":"Yule","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=yule"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12059,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12059","url_meta":{"origin":1263,"position":1},"title":"Christmas, When the Veil is Thin","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"In December (yeah, this is late) I was tapped by a public library in Oregon to give an hour's Zoom lecture on the \"Pagan origins of Christmas.\" I did it, but that format is still pretty weird. How many people are watching? Three? Thirty? Three hundred? And are they awake?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ancestors\"","block_context":{"text":"ancestors","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ancestors"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Christmas-eve-lantern-1-238x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1098,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1098","url_meta":{"origin":1263,"position":2},"title":"Yes, Hypatia, There is a Santa Claus","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This fellow -- Santa Claus, Father Christmas -- has joined the lineup of graven images on our polytheistic\/animistic mantel. That's Hermes' foot at the far left, followed by an ossuary jar of sharp-shinned hawk bones, and Hekate on the right.We all know that Santa's name derives from the Dutch form\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1264,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1264","url_meta":{"origin":1263,"position":3},"title":"Pagan Thoughts at the Parade of Lights","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last fall I looked for Pagan virtues in a small-town \"Pioneer Day\" parade.Similar thoughts ran through my mind last night watching an even smaller town's \"Parade of Lights.\"The procession was about one block long: two pieces of fire apparatus, the local mountain search-and-rescue group (yellow jackets, hard hats, head lamps),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":576,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=576","url_meta":{"origin":1263,"position":4},"title":"I still call them \"Christmas\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"I still call them \"Christmas cards\"When I was new to the Pagan movement, I was militant about saying \"Yule\" instead of \"Christmas.\" I managed to train one of my sisters to employ the same usage when speaking to me; the other one never really noticed.This year, we are enjoying this\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6209,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6209","url_meta":{"origin":1263,"position":5},"title":"Trees, Animism, and Yuletide","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I wanted to use the photo of the dumped Christmas tree with two different posts. Then I decided to combine them, so keep reading. 1. \"Trees\" is the theme of this month's Animist Blog Carnival, hosted by Australian blogger Jay at naturebum. Tree totems, forest fires, Indo-European cosmology, and more!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"Christmas tree discarded on public land in southern Colorado. (Photo: Royal Gorge Field Office, Bureau of Land Management)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/discardedXmastree1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/discardedXmastree1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/discardedXmastree1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}