{"id":1654,"date":"2019-12-20T18:36:45","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T18:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2019-12-25T21:39:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-25T21:39:58","slug":"a-memorable-christmas-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1654","title":{"rendered":"A Memorable Christmas Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, here we are at just about Christmas time already \u2014 seems like we\u2019ve been especially busy this year \u2014 or \u2014 maybe I\u2019m just moving slower and it seems like we\u2019re busier. Anyhow, it\u2019s kind of a tradition that I write some kind of a Christmas blog, so here we go\u2026.
Recently, I discussed the various types of ornaments, or tree toppers people put on their Christmas trees, and I mentioned that we have four Christmas trees in our house every year. We haven\u2019t always had four Christmas trees\u2026. but we have had a lot of Christmas trees over the years.
Generally speaking, the Christmas tree itself usually doesn\u2019t stir up memories, the memories are usually some thing or some event associated with the tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some trees, in and of themselves, do generate memories. The first Christmas tree we had together, was a \u201cfake\u201d tree that my parents sent to us when we were in the Philippines. We had that tree for many, many years and always put it up in addition to our \u201creal\u201d Christmas tree. It evolved to a tree that held our kid\u2019s ornaments \u2014 the tree is different, but our kids’ ornaments still have a tree of their own in our house every year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another memorable Christmas tree was our first real\/living Christmas tree when Kelly was old enough to start to realize that Christmas was something special\u2026 I still remember her coming downstairs on that Christmas morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

But our \u201cstrangest\u201d Christmas tree may be the most memorable of all. One year shortly after we were married, my job had me stuck in Singapore for Christmas. Fortunately, Claire was able to join me there and we celebrated Christmas in a hotel room. Some friends of ours that lived in Singapore invited us over for dinner a day or so before Christmas and their two kids, both in the 4 to 6 or 7 year old range, found out that we were staying in a hotel and we didn\u2019t have a Christmas tree. The next day, they insisted<\/em> that they come to the hotel and bring us a Christmas tree. You\u2019ve probably heard about a Charlie Brown Christmas tree\u2026 well, this was a real Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. But having that tree made Christmas more special, and because it was delivered by children that obviously understood there was more to Christmas than getting presents, made it particularly special. You can check out the tree in the picture\u2026 Christmas (and life) doesn\u2019t get much better than times like those. Merry Christmas to everyone.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here we are at just about Christmas time already \u2014 seems like we\u2019ve been especially busy this year \u2014 or \u2014 maybe I\u2019m just moving slower and it seems like we\u2019re busier. Anyhow, it\u2019s kind of a tradition that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1665,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/1665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}