{"id":1709,"date":"2017-12-28T09:51:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T23:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/1709-dreaming-of-a-golden-christmas.html"},"modified":"2017-12-28T10:52:35","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T00:22:35","slug":"dreaming-of-a-golden-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/1709-dreaming-of-a-golden-christmas.html","title":{"rendered":"Dreaming of a Golden Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<!-- s9ymdb:401 --><a href=\"\/serendipity\/\" title=\"Robert&apos;s Ramblings\"><!-- s9ymdb:2361 --><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"serendipity_image_center\" width=\"1024\" height=\"580\" src=\"\/serendipity\/uploads\/land_photos\/1540-_MG_2842.jpg\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>\nNothing could be further from the traditional &#8216;White Christmas&#8217; than basking in golden twilight on an Australian beach in 35 degrees C. Well yes I could get creative and go further however the contrast between these two worlds literally poles apart yet sharing the same festive season is profound.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nAll through my childhood Christmas time meant sweltering 30-40 degree days, swimming with friends in local creeks, streams and rivers and an annual pilgrimage to the beach. Christmas meant holidays from school, wearing tee-shirts, shorts and sandals, spending hours in the sun, sunburn, bee-stings and grazed knees.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nTo me the myth of the &#8216;White Christmas&#8217; was the stuff of books and Disney movies and Christmas cards.<br \/>\n <br \/>\nAs the years flew past the world got smaller, the differences grew greater and my acceptance of contradictions expanded.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nNo longer a myth to me having experienced several Christmases with my northern hemisphere families I now can&#8217;t help but replace those famous lyrics of Irving Berlin&#8217;s &#8216;White Christmas&#8217; with my own Australian summer version.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nPhoto: Robert Rath, &#8216;Dreaming of a Golden Christmas&#8217;, 1\/25s f\/11 ISO160 15mm<br \/>\n<br \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nothing could be further from the traditional &#8216;White Christmas&#8217; than basking in golden twilight on an Australian beach in 35 degrees C. Well yes I could get creative and go further however the contrast between these two worlds literally poles apart yet sharing the same festive season is profound. All through my childhood Christmas time &#8230; <a title=\"Dreaming of a Golden Christmas\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/archives\/1709-dreaming-of-a-golden-christmas.html\" aria-label=\"Read more about Dreaming of a Golden Christmas\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertrath.com\/serendipity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}