{"id":2159,"date":"2018-12-23T16:53:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T00:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/?p=2159"},"modified":"2018-12-23T16:53:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T00:53:45","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/merry-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora;\">I have many friends who are more or less Christian. Some who are atheist or agnostic. Others who are Jewish. Quite a few Buddhists. Add a few Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and other religions.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora;\">Almost everyone celebrates a new beginning this time of year. A moment when the physical laws of a watery planet traveling through space and our human realm of thoughts, culture, and society all intersect and we exhale a grateful sigh of relief for the passing of the old year and hope to do better in the next year. Each of us does this in our own way.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora;\">This year I have made it a point to avoid saying &#8220;Happy Holidays&#8221; and instead say &#8220;Merry Christmas,&#8221; but not because I elevate Christmas over all other celebrations of the season.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora;\">I take great pleasure in Christmas. On the Waschke Homestead, this time of year, when the weather approaches its coldest and harshest in the northern hemisphere, Christmas was a season for visiting, bountiful shared meals, the best cakes, cookies, and, above all, expressions of how much we care for each other through the exchange of gifts and greetings.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora;\">I have resolved to wish the pleasures of the season that I know best, Christmas. I wish the pleasures of my experience to everyone and I hope that they will reciprocate and wish their pleasures back to me.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Copperplate Gothic Bold;\">And so, to everyone, everywhere, <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Copperplate Gothic Bold;\">I wish you <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-family: Copperplate Gothic Bold;\">MERRY CHRISTMAS<\/span><span style=\"font-family: Lora;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have many friends who are more or less Christian. Some who are atheist or agnostic. Others who are Jewish. Quite a few Buddhists. Add a few Sikhs, Zoroastrians, and other religions. Almost everyone celebrates a new beginning this time of year. A moment when the physical laws of a watery planet traveling through space &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/merry-christmas\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[185],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-waschke-homestead","tag-christmas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2166,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions\/2166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinemaple.net\/studio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}