I\u2019m a day ahead of most of my readers. Mostly, this doesn\u2019t matter. Today, it matters a lot. I\u2019m writing my Monday post and for many people who read it instantly, it\u2019s Christmas. If this is you, I hope you have a lovely Christmas. Me, I spent the day in bed due to thunderstorms that never stopped. That kind of thunderstorm gives me a lot of pain, so I slept it off. Not a problem, except I\u2019ve a lot of work to catch up on.<\/p>\n
This brings us to what is, for most people, Boxing Day. My today. 26 December.<\/p>\n
My father was born on Boxing Day, so we always celebrated his birthday then. This year, he would have been 100. He died when I was 26. The biggest grief fades with time, but I never don\u2019t miss him. Today on Facebook I did two things \u2013 I reached out to all my other friends who miss parents, and I asked friends to share their worst jokes. I do this every year, but this year, I need more. Even though Dad didn\u2019t even make 2\/3 of the way to 100, I want to remember him today. I\u2019m having an online get-together in his name tonight (from about 8 pm UTC+11 for about four hours). If you\u2019d like to join me, ask for a link in the comments or email me directly, or, if you\u2019re friends with me on Facebook, pop into Facebook and find the link there. It won\u2019t be a big crowd \u2013 most of the world is still doing Christmas and its aftermath. And we mostly won\u2019t be talking about my father! But bad jokes will be welcome.<\/p>\n
I hope every one of you who has lost parents and others who are close to you have happy memories you can focus on today. For me, you see, Boxing Day is all about remembering the good time and the wonder of people I love. Not just my father. My BFF, my aunts, my uncles, my cousin David\u2026 so many people I miss. For me, today is their day.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s always someone who pops up and suggests that All Soul\u2019s Day is the right day for such memories. Well, it is\u2026 for many Christians. The rest of us have other days, and my day is 26 December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m a day ahead of most of my readers. Mostly, this doesn\u2019t matter. Today, it matters a lot. I\u2019m writing my Monday post and for many people who read it instantly, it\u2019s Christmas. If this is you, I hope you have a lovely Christmas. Me, I spent the day in bed due to thunderstorms that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[636,56],"tags":[821,43,819,820],"class_list":["post-3130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-life-experiences","tag-bad-jokes","tag-loss","tag-memories","tag-parents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3131,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3130\/revisions\/3131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}