{"id":209,"date":"2012-12-23T12:28:37","date_gmt":"2012-12-23T18:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/?p=209"},"modified":"2012-12-23T12:48:38","modified_gmt":"2012-12-23T18:48:38","slug":"what-christmas-means-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/23\/what-christmas-means-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"What Christmas Means to Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas, it&#8217;s a time of pretty lights, pretty packages, family get togethers ,Hallmark movies, claymation movies and midnight church services. It&#8217;s children looking for Santa, his elves and flying reindeer. It&#8217;s the joy of gift giving and receiving. I must not forget, the cool Christmas windows in department stores. Even famous parades. The list goes on.  <\/p>\n<p>As a child I looked forward to Santa and gifts. In my teen to young adulthood, just the gift. When I became a parent, it meant giving my children the best memories of the Christmas season. Today as my children get older, and my age climbs, Christmas has changed.  I&#8217;m actually seeing Christmas in a new way. Christmas really does have magic and miracles. I never thought I would see the day, when my Christmas list was more about giving than receiving. <\/p>\n<p> We forget that Christmas, at least to me, means the promise from God that all my needs will be met. It&#8217;s the wake up call, to let go of the past, focus on today and leave the future in Gods hands.  Before my diagnosis of depression, I had doubts that Christmas would be enjoyable. After all money&#8217;s tight, my family is 189 miles away, I work a lot of hours to make ends meet. Would there be a tree? Would there be gifts? What kind of food would we have? <\/p>\n<p>Well my questions where answered. In my old life, I had three trees. When we moved I had to put one in storage, and get ride of one. Yet my four foot tree remained here, which now stands with ornaments and lights a glow. There a gifts under the tree, food in the freezer and my family is driving 189 miles to spend the day with me on Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Once again my needs were met. Christmas really isn&#8217;t about the gifts or trees. It&#8217;s Gods true love and his gifts for all of us, should we accept them.   May God continue to bless you and your friends and family. I know God will continue to love and provide for me and my loved ones. Merry Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christmas, it&#8217;s a time of pretty lights, pretty packages, family get togethers ,Hallmark movies, claymation movies and midnight church services. It&#8217;s children looking for Santa, his elves and flying reindeer. It&#8217;s the joy of gift giving and receiving. I must &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/2012\/12\/23\/what-christmas-means-to-me\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familydill.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}