{"id":709,"date":"2017-12-24T06:58:50","date_gmt":"2017-12-24T10:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/?p=709"},"modified":"2025-12-28T09:46:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:46:27","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hope the hustle and bustle has not done too much to dampen your spirits. Many years ago I was visiting with a family when gifts were opened. A 4 year old boy tore through the 8-10 gifts that were his under the tree. After he opened the last one he threw it aside and screamed, &#8220;Is that all!&#8221; Most of my Christmases growing up were pleasant but I can remember thinking mostly of me, me, me.<br \/>\nBe a servant to those around you. It really is the greatest gift of all.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/DSCN2026.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-711\" alt=\"DSCN2026\" src=\"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/DSCN2026-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hope the hustle and bustle has not done too much to dampen your spirits. Many years ago I was visiting with a family when gifts were opened. A 4 year old boy tore through the 8-10 gifts that were his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/?p=709\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanpippenger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}