{"id":1836,"date":"2011-12-24T16:39:19","date_gmt":"2011-12-25T00:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/?p=1836"},"modified":"2023-04-17T16:11:58","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T00:11:58","slug":"the-spirit-of-st-nick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/24\/the-spirit-of-st-nick\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spirit of St. Nick"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/24\/the-spirit-of-st-nick\/&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=1&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;font=\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:25px\"><\/iframe><iframe src=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/like.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fheathervale.com%2Fblog%2F2011%2F12%2F24%2Fthe-spirit-of-st-nick%2F&amp;layout=standard&amp;show_faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;height=80\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:80px;\" allowTransparency=\"true\"><\/iframe><p><a href=\"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/santas_list-2304.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1838\" style=\"margin: 5px 10px; float: left;\" title=\"santas list\" src=\"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/santas_list-2304.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"295\" height=\"407\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/santas_list-2304.jpg 295w, https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/santas_list-2304-217x300.jpg 217w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 295px) 100vw, 295px\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot about Santa Claus lately. With a 3-year-old, it&#8217;s hard to escape that at Christmas time!<\/p>\n<p>And what I&#8217;ve realized more and more is, Santa isn&#8217;t about an old man with a beard, any more than God is (in my opinion and belief).<\/p>\n<p>God (or the Universe, the Creator, or whatever name you like) is everywhere. Omnipresent.<\/p>\n<p>A spiritual force that connects us all together, whether we&#8217;re in a particular &#8220;special&#8221; building or not.<\/p>\n<p>And Santa, in many ways, is too.<\/p>\n<p>So while we were told as kids that he watches and knows all about whether we&#8217;re good or bad&#8230; that&#8217;s true in the same sense that the Universe delivers experiences that we focus on, whether it&#8217;s good or bad (yin or yang).<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the spirit of St. Nick is the spirit of the Universe. And loving Santa is like loving life.<\/p>\n<p>Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keep Unwrapping the Mysteries of Life!<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Heather Vale Goss\" src=\"http:\/\/heathervale.com\/images\/sigHVG_2.1_blue.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"205\" height=\"35\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot about Santa Claus lately. With a 3-year-old, it&#8217;s hard to escape that at Christmas time! And what I&#8217;ve realized more and more is, Santa isn&#8217;t about an old man with a beard, any more than God is (in my opinion and belief). God (or the Universe, the Creator, or whatever [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebrations"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Spirit of St. Nick - Heather Vale Unwrapped<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/heathervale.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/24\/the-spirit-of-st-nick\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Spirit of St. Nick - Heather Vale Unwrapped\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ve been thinking a lot about Santa Claus lately. 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