[February 2002 journal entry]
I continue to think about the correlations on the one hand of ‘religion’ and the ‘God’ language characteristic of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm and on the other hand the ‘Santa’ traditions/experience – e.g., (1) the naïve, simple, and innocent ‘Santa’ belief of a six-year-old, (2) a confident 2nd-grader who defends ‘Santa’ belief in reaction to the suspicions of another student, (3) the first serious questions about the illogic of the ‘Santa’ story, (5) a 3rd-grader’s more frantic and haunted attempts to defend ‘Santa’ belief.