{"id":1418,"date":"2025-03-20T17:21:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T17:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/?p=1418"},"modified":"2025-11-24T01:46:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T01:46:26","slug":"celebrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/?p=1418","title":{"rendered":"Celebrate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Friends.&nbsp; Today is my birthday.&nbsp; As I\u2019ve reflected on this special day I can\u2019t be more grateful that I was born in the family I was born in.&nbsp; I\u2019m so very grateful for all of the people I have in my life.&nbsp; Some have been fleeting and some, decades.&nbsp; (yes I\u2019m that old).&nbsp; \ud83d\ude42&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p><p>Birthdays can be a day of gift giving, well wishing, thoughtful gestures towards the one you love moving into the next year of their life.&nbsp; Today is no different.&nbsp; I thought I\u2019d share with you a small gift exchange that really made my day this month, unbeknownst to the giver of the gift.&nbsp; It was what I needed when I needed it.<\/p><p>For the past ten years, The Truffle Cottage has gone to Seattle, Washington to a big convention called ECCC.&nbsp; Early on, we told our fans if they brought us Diet Pepsi, we would bring them a special chocolate treat.&nbsp; Two of our favorite friends started bringing us my favorite drink every year.&nbsp; It\u2019s been a decade and through this exchange, we\u2019ve become good friends.&nbsp; This show is like coming home to our convention family.&nbsp;<\/p><p>We have other convention friends who never knew about this exchange, since it was many years ago we started it.&nbsp; We still love these friends, and look forward to seeing everyone throughout this four day weekend.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p><p>Two weeks ago, we were at it again, selling our chocolate wares, catching up with our ECCC family, excited to see them all.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p><p>There is one particular couple who we really love and are excited to see every year.&nbsp; They come to our booth first thing on Thursday, filling up their suitcases with chocolate.&nbsp; After the good to see you again hugs and small chit chat, my friend reached in his backpack and pulled out a six pack of Pepsi with an explanation.&nbsp; He said he had extra time at work and came across The Truffle Cottage social media account.&nbsp; As he scrolled, he saw that someone brought us drinks and he wanted to join in the fun.&nbsp; What an unexpected surprise!<\/p><p>This little effort meant so much to me!&nbsp; To think that someone would take the time to bring me something with no encouragement touched me.&nbsp; These little efforts we make towards each other are blessings that sometimes ripple further than we could possibly know.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p><p>Today, celebrate with me. Let&#8217;s be a little more thoughtful like my dear friend in Seattle.\u00a0 Hopefully the small gesture that came from a simple effort to bring me joy will turn into a wonderful ripple effect as I serve my friends around me.\u00a0 After all, what is a birthday without friends and family to enjoy it with.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Friends.&nbsp; Today is my birthday.&nbsp; As I\u2019ve reflected on this special day I can\u2019t be more grateful that I was born in the family I was born in.&nbsp; I\u2019m so very grateful for all of the people I have in my life.&nbsp; Some have been fleeting and some, decades.&nbsp; (yes I\u2019m that old).&nbsp; \ud83d\ude42&nbsp;&nbsp; Birthdays can be a day of gift giving, well wishing, thoughtful gestures towards the one you love moving into the next year of their life.&nbsp; Today is no different.&nbsp; I thought I\u2019d share with you a small gift exchange that really made my day this month, unbeknownst to the giver of the gift.&nbsp; It was what I needed when I needed it. For the past ten years, The Truffle Cottage has gone to Seattle, Washington to a big convention called ECCC.&nbsp; Early on, we told our fans if they brought us Diet Pepsi, we would bring them a special chocolate treat.&nbsp; Two of our favorite friends started bringing us my favorite drink every year.&nbsp; It\u2019s been a decade and through this exchange, we\u2019ve become good friends.&nbsp; This show is like coming home to our convention family.&nbsp; We have other convention friends who never knew about this exchange, since it was many years ago we started it.&nbsp; We still love these friends, and look forward to seeing everyone throughout this four day weekend.&nbsp;&nbsp; Two weeks ago, we were at it again, selling our chocolate wares, catching up with our ECCC family, excited to see them all.&nbsp;&nbsp; There is one particular couple who we really love and are excited to see every year.&nbsp; They come to our booth first thing on Thursday, filling up their suitcases with chocolate.&nbsp; After the good to see you again hugs and small chit chat, my friend reached in his backpack and pulled out a six pack of Pepsi with an explanation.&nbsp; He said he had extra time at work and came across The Truffle Cottage social media account.&nbsp; As he scrolled, he saw that someone brought us drinks and he wanted to join in the fun.&nbsp; What an unexpected surprise! This little effort meant so much to me!&nbsp; To think that someone would take the time to bring me something with no encouragement touched me.&nbsp; These little efforts we make towards each other are blessings that sometimes ripple further than we could possibly know.&nbsp;&nbsp; Today, celebrate with me. Let&#8217;s be a little more thoughtful like my dear friend in Seattle.\u00a0 Hopefully the small gesture that came from a simple effort to bring me joy will turn into a wonderful ripple effect as I serve my friends around me.\u00a0 After all, what is a birthday without friends and family to enjoy it with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[44,40],"class_list":["post-1418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-fingerprints-of-god","tag-hope"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1418"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1608,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1418\/revisions\/1608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebighopeletters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}