{"id":610,"date":"2008-12-01T04:59:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T04:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=610"},"modified":"2014-10-01T03:15:10","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T03:15:10","slug":"all-that-glitters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=610","title":{"rendered":"All that glitters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/ruddyxmas.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274643653947274530\" style=\"FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 214px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/ruddyxmas-200x300.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><span style=\"font-size:85%;\">It must be some sort of record that there&#8217;s a tree in my house before December. It&#8217;s only half-decorated, but I&#8217;m hoping early for some of the magic of the lights and baubles to improve what is lately a hard time of year for me.<\/p>\n<p>At some point, the holidays became less about magic and hope and celebration and more about rushing around and obligations and ridiculous expectations. I feel terribly selfish for it, but I almost want to just skip the whole production.<\/p>\n<p>Scandalous, I know.<\/p>\n<p>The DH has had his radio tuned to the *24 hour-round-the-clock-make-you-insane-all-Christmas-music-all-the-time* radio station for two weeks now. I&#8217;ve growled at him often enough that he just quietly changes it to something less offensive in my presence. He reminded me the other day that we practically wore out a tape of favorite Christmas music on our honeymoon. Our Christmastime wedding, all hollyberries and seasonal cheer, guarantees that I should forever have the Christmas spirit, right?<\/p>\n<p>Right?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m less confused by my change of heart than he, but can&#8217;t easily explain the tarnish that&#8217;s come over the season. There&#8217;s a lot less innocent belief, less love for the ritual, less hope for the power of one day on the calendar to make things what we wish them to be.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s left feels false. And forced. And not at all golden.<\/p>\n<p><em>This horribly depressing post brought to you courtesy of days of rain and gray gloom. Rather than the twinkly lights of a Xmas tree&#8230; I think I may need a raging bonfire to improve my mood&#8230; or a short vacation to the tropics.<br \/><\/em><br \/>\ud83d\ude09 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It must be some sort of record that there&#8217;s a tree in my house before December. It&#8217;s only half-decorated, but I&#8217;m hoping early for some of the magic of the lights and baubles to improve what is lately a hard time of year for me. At some point, the holidays became less about magic and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/?p=610\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">All that glitters<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somewhereinnj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}