{"id":113,"date":"2009-08-08T02:32:33","date_gmt":"2009-08-08T02:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/?p=113"},"modified":"2009-08-08T02:32:33","modified_gmt":"2009-08-08T02:32:33","slug":"the-gift-of-giving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/the-gift-of-giving\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Giving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When it came time to celebrate a couple of friends\u2019 birthdays at High Mesa Healing Center, the subject of gifts came up, of course. Usually this group gets together for birthdays at a local restaurant where we enjoy a meal and then open cards and presents \u2013 little things like candles or earrings. For Willy\u2019s and Zoe\u2019s birthdays we did something different. Both women decided they would rather the group donate to their favorite charities. Cards are precious but I know personally I have great difficulty throwing these away, so consequently I have boxes of sentimental greetings that I\u2019ve collected and stored over the years.<\/p>\n<p>When I was told the wish was to not receive these cards or little gifts, but that we would donate whatever we could to the Food Bank and the Humane Society, I was impressed and pleased. We gathered at Barbara\u2019s home out on the deck and all shared a salad potluck lunch. Everyone brought something different and all the dishes were delicious. We had a carrot salad, shrimp salad, mozzarella and tomato bowl, cole slaw, chicken salad with crackers, home-grown tomatoes, and other wonderful salads. After we finished our lunch we sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed home-made carrot cake. The donations were collected in beautifully-wrapped little boxes with slits on the top. Willy and Zoe took their donations and a last piece of birthday cake and that\u2019s all. We all agreed this is how we will celebrate our birthdays from now on. The gift of Giving is the best gift of all!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/zoeWilly-300x245.jpg\" alt=\"Z\u00f6e and Willy\" title=\"Z\u00f6e and Willy\" width=\"300\" height=\"245\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-114\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/zoeWilly-300x245.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/zoeWilly-1024x836.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/zoeWilly.jpg 1544w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Great Way to Give <a href=\"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/the-gift-of-giving\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,66,64,17],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gratitude-attitude","tag-charitable-gifts","tag-give-to-give","tag-giving","tag-gratitude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116,"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gratitude-gifts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}