{"id":3530,"date":"2012-12-29T12:50:40","date_gmt":"2012-12-29T02:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2026-09-04T14:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T04:50:00","slug":"a-family-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/2012\/12\/a-family-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"A Family Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Christmas began with vigil Mass on Christmas Eve, held under the stars outside one of our little country churches. Dad and I sat together on a rug on the grass, surrounded by hundreds of other parishioners. It was a beautiful evening and a lovely, simple ceremony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The next morning I prepared a few dishes to take to Mum and Dad\u2019s for lunch, fed the neighbour\u2019s chooks and pony, then my husband and I sat down with a cuppa and exchanged gifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lunch at Mum and Dad\u2019s was relaxed and plentiful, with barbecue chicken and turkey, salads, and Mum\u2019s ripe tomatoes with basil and bocconcini \u2013 still mouth-watering in memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After dessert and presents, we settled down together to watch&nbsp;<em>The Sound of Music<\/em>&nbsp;and let the food settle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A simple Christmas shared with family \u2013 Mass under the stars, good food at Mum and Dad\u2019s, and the familiar comfort of being together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6618,"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions\/6618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hamjak.com\/ma2005\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}