{"id":4645,"date":"2019-12-02T15:49:02","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T15:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/?p=4645"},"modified":"2019-12-02T15:49:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T15:49:02","slug":"we-should-all-take-back-our-christmas-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/2019\/12\/we-should-all-take-back-our-christmas-groove","title":{"rendered":"We Should All Take Back Our Christmas Groove"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone who knows me\u00a0well\u00a0knows that I love to travel.\u00a0No place is too far, exotic or even expensive to escape my wanderlust eyes\u2014not even the stress of travelling with a Nigerian passport\u00a0phases me.\u00a0In fact, the more difficult it is to get there, the more determined I am to be there!\u00a0Of course, there is the persistent inconvenience that comes from travel as a hobby and working full time. Something has got to give and as far as I\u2019m concerned, it’s definitely not the job : )<\/p>\n

This is why I always look forward to\u00a0holidays, specifically, December.\u00a0For those of us that work 9 – 5 throughout the year,\u00a0you know what those extra five compulsory days off work mean;\u00a0when the office literally kicks you out and tells you to rest for a couple of weeks;\u00a0it’s a Vacation!\u00a0so\u00a0what do you do?\u00a0You whip out a map and see how you can take advantage of the time off.<\/p>\n

I remember one particular year I couldn\u2019t take a much-needed vacation because my office at the time did not\u00a0‘kick us out’, so I was stuck in Lagos with the Christmas crowd which majorly comprises of \u2018I just got backs.\u2019\u00a0I tried to make the best of the situation, especially considering it was one of the biggest holidays in Nigeria, but I just couldn\u2019t connect with all that was happening around me, I didn’t feel very \u2018Christmassy\u2019, at all. The Christmas lights came up on the streets of Lagos, I felt a tinge of something. I attended service, that didn’t do it (God knows my heart!). Then I managed to shop for gifts \u2013 wrapping the gifts was actually a highlight, but the Christmas feeling still wasn\u2019t fully kicking in.<\/p>\n

I started to wonder what the problem was:\u00a0Was it the economic crunch affecting my mood, or had I gotten so fixated with the idea of travelling over the holidays that I simply could not appreciate spending time with my loved ones? Thinking back now, it was most likely the economic crunch.\u00a0Anyway,\u00a0I was such a grump that year that my boyfriend, at the time, got me a present and I made him return it because I felt it didn\u2019t suit me. When I think about it now, I feel so ashamed. I was so in my feelings that I did not think about all the effort that must have gone into getting the gift, and for men that actually make the effort, I can only imagine all the \u2018wahala\u2019 he must have gone through to get it right. I have since apologised, it\u2019s water under the bridge.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why I am now fixated on that Christmas experience, but I have been thinking,\u00a0as another Christmas approaches, what makes Christmas, Christmas? What is that one trigger that gets us into the holiday celebratory mode? Are we getting older, busier, more tuned out that spending time with loved ones has lost its sentimentality?<\/p>\n

Thinking about past Christmases led me to\u00a0a specific Christmas experience I am particularly fond of.\u00a0It was Christmas 2004 when I still lived in the US. My older sister and I had just moved back to Miami (this was our original home) from Virginia and New York respectively. We had no furniture, no family around, and we couldn’t afford to buy presents. Yet we had the best time baking, goofing around and reminiscing about home (the irony!).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I want to go back to those simple days! I know, easier said than done when the world is drumming at you with goals and deadlines and bills to pay. Still, I am aware of the simple things that make Christmas happen in the real sense of the season, sharing and showing love just like Jesus did! Perhaps this is the biggest lesson I am drawing from all these memories. Don’t wait for external events to set the tone for your celebration, make your relationships count. Make Christmas count.<\/p>\n

How do you plan to spend your holidays?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who knows me\u00a0well\u00a0knows that I love to travel.\u00a0No place is too far, exotic or even expensive to escape my wanderlust eyes\u2014not even the stress of travelling with a Nigerian passport\u00a0phases me.\u00a0In fact, the more difficult it is to get there, the more determined I am to be there!\u00a0Of course, there is the persistent inconvenience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4666,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645\/revisions\/4666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heirsholdings.com\/hhpeople\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}