{"id":7567,"date":"2014-12-21T03:55:07","date_gmt":"2014-12-21T03:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7567"},"modified":"2014-12-21T03:55:07","modified_gmt":"2014-12-21T03:55:07","slug":"staying-ready-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=7567","title":{"rendered":"Staying ready for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The question comes to me — and everyone else — every … single … year.<\/p>\n

“Are you ready for Christmas?”<\/p>\n

Upon making a pact with myself some years ago to avoid the “hassles” associated with Christmas, I initially found the question a bit awkward. I’d come up with some kind of semi-catchy response, although I no longer can remember what I’d say.<\/p>\n

These days, my answer is simple.<\/p>\n

Yep. I’m ready. I’m always ready. I stay ready. I was born<\/em> ready.<\/p>\n

In fact, my current response is taken from something a friend of mine down Beaumont way, the late Gene Dumatrait, used to say. He was always “ready” for anything. You name it, Gino was ready for it.<\/p>\n

Back to my point, which is that Christmas is something for which I always am ready. I spend very little time worrying about anything this time of year. Indeed, the holiday shouldn’t be about getting prepared for things. I choose to take time to reflect on simple pleasures, on the many blessings I have … such as my family. I want to consider the real “reason for the season,” which Scripture tells us is the birth of Jesus.<\/p>\n

I no longer concern myself with getting “ready” for Christmas.<\/p>\n

I’m not denigrating others who get caught up in the hustle, bustle and sometimes tussle<\/em> of this holiday time. That’s their call to make and more power to them.<\/p>\n

Me?\u00a0I’ll just go with the flow.<\/p>\n

Isn’t Christmas a time for joy? I intend to have a joyful time of it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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The question comes to me — and everyone else — every … single … year. “Are you ready for Christmas?” Upon making a pact with myself some years ago to avoid the “hassles” associated with Christmas, I initially found the question a bit awkward. I’d come up with some kind of semi-catchy response, although I … Continue reading Staying ready for Christmas<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[567,978],"class_list":["post-7567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-beaumont","tag-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}