{"id":2650,"date":"2019-11-10T20:33:32","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T03:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2650"},"modified":"2019-11-10T20:37:27","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T03:37:27","slug":"cant-get-enough-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2650","title":{"rendered":"Can\u2019t Get Enough of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2652\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-180x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"180\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-180x300.jpg 180w, https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-768x1282.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-614x1024.jpg 614w, https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-830x1385.jpg 830w, https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-230x384.jpg 230w, https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-350x584.jpg 350w, https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/santa_mike-480x801.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 180px) 100vw, 180px\" \/><\/a>Not even mid-November and stores already decorated for Christmas. But if you think I\u2019m going to complain, think again.<\/p>\n<p>You see, I love all things Christmas, even the commercial stuff. If Wal-Mart wants to deck the halls with reds and greens and play \u201cJingle Bells\u201d in July, I say, \u201cGo for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t even mind the secular emphasis\u2014you know, Santa, reindeer, elves and such. Because rather than competing with the child in the manger, I\u2019ve always thought these point to him (I wrote about it 20 years ago; see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bestyears.com\/dearsanta.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u201cI Believe in You, Santa\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>My argument is that Bethlehem\u2019s baby is King of kings and Lord of lords. As I said in my Santa piece, \u201cThe Christ who can take even pagan traditions and use them for good is truly Lord of all creation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So bring on sleighs and mangers, \u201cJingle Bells and \u201cJoy to the World,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a Wonderful Life\u201d and the second chapter of Luke.<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t get enough of Christmas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Not even mid-November and stores already decorated for Christmas. But if you think I\u2019m going to complain, think again. You see, I love all things Christmas, even the commercial stuff. If Wal-Mart wants to deck the halls with reds and greens and play \u201cJingle Bells\u201d in July, I say, \u201cGo for it.\u201d I don\u2019t even [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2655,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions\/2655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}