{"id":897,"date":"2007-12-24T09:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-24T07:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/?p=897"},"modified":"2007-12-24T09:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-24T07:57:00","slug":"merry-christmas-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas Everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So today is that special day&#8230;.Christmas day.&nbsp; Sadly I won&#8217;t be celebrating it with my family, but Alex has been kind enough to let me celebrate Christmas with him and his family.<\/p>\n<p>I have to say that I really like the concept of Christmas in Sweden when compared to how it is in America (as I perceive it anyway).&nbsp; For starters, Sweden and Scandinavians celebrate Christmas on 24 December&#8230;a day early by my standards where we celebrate it on the actual day.&nbsp; And also, from what I have seen in three different Swedish households over the last 5 years (Robin, Markus, and Alex), Christmas isn&#8217;t intended to be this budget-busting, go-into-debt experience that it is in the US:&nbsp; Within reason of course, <em>what<\/em> the gift is as important as the fact that a gift is <em>given<\/em>.&nbsp; It is acceptable to send $30 a person on a gift.&nbsp; Maybe I am too jaded from my US experiences, but I can&#8217;t imagine that $30 gifts are acceptable from family members &#8212; only from office workmates or friends.&nbsp; But I don&#8217;t say that everything is wrong with Christmas in America.&nbsp; Indeed, I have had some wonderful memories of American Christmas.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, let&#8217;s not lose the intent of this message&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I wish everyone a very very Merry Christmas, whether around the corner from me or around the world!&nbsp; May you get everything you wish for, and may you give more than you receive \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>Hugs, Rodney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So today is that special day&#8230;.Christmas day.&nbsp; Sadly I won&#8217;t be celebrating it with my family, but Alex has been kind enough to let me celebrate Christmas with him and his family. I have to say that I really like the concept of Christmas in Sweden when compared to how it is in America (as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/?p=897\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Merry Christmas Everyone<\/span> <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":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.rodneycornelius.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}