{"id":42773,"date":"2024-12-23T06:30:23","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T17:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=42773"},"modified":"2024-12-22T20:30:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T07:30:08","slug":"is-it-the-holidays-yet-is-it-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2024\/12\/23\/is-it-the-holidays-yet-is-it-is-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It The Holidays Yet? Is it? Is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know about you, dear readers, but I am more than ready for a break &#8212; although that feeling of being rushed off one&#8217;s feet, thus needing to put them up with a wee cuppa, is partly due to it being the &#8220;end of year&#8221;, with the Christmas and New Year holidays immediately ahead.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_40760\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-40760\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-40760\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Pohutakawa-flowers_small-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Pohutakawa-flowers_small-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Pohutakawa-flowers_small-112x150.jpg 112w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Pohutakawa-flowers_small.jpg 443w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-40760\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christmas in Aotearoa<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Plus, you know, all that shopping: for special food and drink, and gifts for family and others you may be spending Christmas with. Not to mention the frantic cleaning and tidying ahead of guests arriving, at least at my place &#8212; because tis a truth universally that housework is one of the first casualties of the writing life.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_36295\" style=\"width: 235px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-36295\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-36295\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Xmas18_Christmas-dinner_a-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Xmas18_Christmas-dinner_a-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Xmas18_Christmas-dinner_a-113x150.jpg 113w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Xmas18_Christmas-dinner_a-768x1024.jpg 768w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/Xmas18_Christmas-dinner_a.jpg 1224w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-36295\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Festive fare<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Nonetheless, I do enjoy the festivities, including the special food and the getting together, and I suspect I may have a little hobbit in my ancestry because I also love both giving and receiving presents. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n<p>And amid all the &#8216;noise and haste&#8217;, have hopes of that cuppa and some feet up time very soon.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_41571\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-41571\" class=\"wp-image-41571 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-11-Coopers-beach-2_small-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-11-Coopers-beach-2_small-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-11-Coopers-beach-2_small-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-11-Coopers-beach-2_small-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-11-Coopers-beach-2_small-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-11-Coopers-beach-2_small.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-41571\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Who knows? There may be beach time ahead&#8230;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In the meantime, I was very chuffed when the NZ Society of Authors chose a quote from my poem, <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/12\/20\/tuesday-poetry-christmastide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Christmastide<\/em><\/a>, for their end-of-year email. I include what it looked for, below. It&#8217;s a very Southern Hemisphere take on Christmas, but I hope your enjoy the difference.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_42774\" style=\"width: 588px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-42774\" class=\"wp-image-42774 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/NZSA-Christmas-Greeting_2024-12-22.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"578\" height=\"651\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/NZSA-Christmas-Greeting_2024-12-22.jpg 578w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/NZSA-Christmas-Greeting_2024-12-22-133x150.jpg 133w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/NZSA-Christmas-Greeting_2024-12-22-266x300.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 578px) 100vw, 578px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-42774\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Southern Hemisphere take &#8216;on the season&#8217;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t know about you, dear readers, but I am more than ready for a break &#8212; although that feeling of being rushed off one&#8217;s feet, thus needing to put them up with a wee cuppa, is partly due to it being the &#8220;end of year&#8221;, with the Christmas and New Year holidays immediately ahead. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42778,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42773\/revisions\/42778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}