{"id":6706,"date":"2024-12-25T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=6706"},"modified":"2024-12-23T15:22:05","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T22:22:05","slug":"more-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2024\/12\/more-true\/","title":{"rendered":"more true"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>Happy holiday season to my fellow wonderers<br \/><br \/>The regularly scheduled Weekly Wonder is Christmas day. It\u2019s my no-so-surprise gift to you all.<br \/><br \/>It turns out that for the grown-ups, Christmas is a lot about all the work we put into it before the surprise. I have the experience of to acting surprised when I open a gift I knew I was going to get.<br \/><br \/>But if it weren\u2019t for the tradition, which could be called the routine, we wouldn\u2019t be surprised. In my family we have agreed to be surprised on this day.<br \/><br \/>Another thing has repeated itself on our holidays for the last few years is sickness.<br \/><br \/>Last year and the year before my daughter and I were sick.<br \/><br \/>This Sunday, my husband was sick. I woke earlier than he did (also tradition) and heard him enter the bathroom in distress.<br \/><br \/>Of course I was concerned. I was not the only one who heard this unusual circumstance. Our house has another tradition.<br \/><br \/>The animals receive treats every morning. Can and dog await my husband\u2019s rising in the morning because he very faithfully dispenses goodies. Their morning routine highlights this action.<br \/><br \/>As the photo shows, they are right outside the bathroom door looking concerned. Are they worried about him?<br \/><br \/>A cynical view is that they are impatient for their snacks. Is that all they want?<br \/><br \/>Another view is that they care about their person\u2014my husband\u2014and want to lend what comfort and healing they can to his distress.<br \/><br \/>Hmm. What if it is a bit from both? <br \/><br \/>The tradition created an awareness in their animals lives of what he was doing every morning.<br \/><br \/>I wake up in the same house, but the dog and the cat are not as excited when I get up. The long habit that my husband nurtured with them has created a sympathy for him. <br \/><br \/>Even after I gave them their morning treats because he was ill, they continued to watch him and stay close. <br \/><br \/>I could interpret their attention as more than self-interest. It wasn\u2019t just because they wanted their treat; those were already dispensed.<br \/><br \/>When it comes to gift giving relationships, I can see that the repeated kindness of gifts creates a bond.<br \/><br \/>It is more than the sum of it\u2019s parts. Looking at it today of all days, I am seeing one how Christmas works.<br \/><br \/>Being consistent, giving things that delight others with generosity is more than the value of the gift given.<br \/><br \/>I am going to call it. Yes, my husband and his daily ceremony of treats has shown me the true meaning of Christmas.<br \/><br \/>Merry Christmas to all!<br \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy holiday season to my fellow wonderers The regularly scheduled Weekly Wonder is Christmas day. It\u2019s my no-so-surprise gift to you all. It turns out that for the grown-ups, Christmas is a lot about all the work we put into &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2024\/12\/more-true\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6707,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6706\/revisions\/6707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}