{"id":12927,"date":"2018-12-20T13:02:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T18:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=12927"},"modified":"2018-12-20T13:02:33","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T18:02:33","slug":"podcast-how-a-mother-and-blind-daughter-taught-santa-the-meaning-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/20\/podcast-how-a-mother-and-blind-daughter-taught-santa-the-meaning-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast: How a Mother and Blind Daughter Taught Santa the Meaning of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy Festivus to everyone! When I worked as a Santa Claus in Boston in 1977, I met a lot of zany characters including a Boss from Hell who would tell me &#8220;go out there &amp; look jolly DAMMIT!&#8221;  But the most vivid memory is of a mother and daughter who showed me what Christmas was all about.  Thinking of those two helps revive my holiday spirit better than an entire bowl of spiked egg nog.  For the <a href=\"http:\/\/fff.org\">Future of Freedom Foundation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Freedom Frauds: Peace on Earth from a One-Season Santa\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9IXyZv1zqBI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"http:\/\/freedomfrauds.libsyn.com\/peace-on-earth-from-a-one-season-santa?tdest_id=838883&amp;fbclid=IwAR10KUX23YWW6Ywx-DwcaEiHcE31nv-Q2FxbMLzb_2j7CZ2SktkWOwkgqxk\">audio version of the podcast<\/a> &#8211; you can listen or download by clicking below &#8211;<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-12927-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2018-12-19_Peace_on_Earth_Audio.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2018-12-19_Peace_on_Earth_Audio.mp3\">http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2018-12-19_Peace_on_Earth_Audio.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>I wrote about my Santa gig for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/SB10001424052970204879004577110812333464928\">Wall Street Journal<\/a> in 2011; here&#8217;s a link to a <a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/confessions-of-a-one-season-santa-wsj\/\">non-paywall version of that piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy this story, you might get a kick out of my memoir, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Public-Policy-Hooligan-Rollicking-Washington-ebook\/dp\/B00AKZH97W\">Public Policy Hooligan<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s a hoot of an artist recreation of my experience by <strong>Tom Blanton<\/strong>, mastermind of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnar.org\">Project for a New American Revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12905\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/podcast-jpb-as-santa-tom-blanton-cropped-spot-healed-12-13-2018.bmp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12905\" class=\"wp-image-12905\" src=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/podcast-jpb-as-santa-tom-blanton-cropped-spot-healed-12-13-2018.bmp\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"746\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-12905\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">My Raging Bitch Christmas by Tom Blanton<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy Festivus to everyone! When I worked as a Santa Claus in Boston in 1977, I met a lot of zany characters including a Boss from Hell who would tell me &#8220;go out there &amp; look jolly DAMMIT!&#8221; But the most vivid memory is of a mother and daughter who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Podcast: How a Mother and Blind Daughter Taught Santa the Meaning of Christmas - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here&#039;s the story of how a mother and her young blind daughter helped me understand the meaning of Christmas when I worked as a Santa Claus in Boston\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/20\/podcast-how-a-mother-and-blind-daughter-taught-santa-the-meaning-of-christmas\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast: How a Mother and Blind Daughter Taught Santa the Meaning of Christmas - 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