Archives

Straining for a Gift? Wu-Tang Clan to the rescue By Tony Cross There’s always that one person who’s impossible to buy for. My father is a struggle during the holidays; he has a habit of buying [...]

Becoming My Father And, luckily, his father, too By Jim Dodson A dear friend I hadn’t seen in far too long and I were having lunch outdoors, safely distanced. She sipped her lemony mineral water [...]

The Greatest Gift The season of a lifetime By Bill Fields Like all of us, my father had his moments. He could be short or overly critical about things that didn’t — or shouldn’t — matter much. [...]

Christmas in Distant Lands Photographs by Tim Sayer Costuming by Mary and Marcie McKeithen, Showboat The symbols of holiday spirit can involve more than a jolly old elf with a belly that shakes [...]

Peppermint Temptation And a holiday home remedy It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . . With candy canes and silver lanes aglow — Meredith Willson By Jan Leitschuh For some, it’s [...]

December Almanac By Ashley Wahl December is here and, with it, the sound of a single cricket. One distant, mechanical song. A message transmitted across space and time. The stars are out. You [...]

Best Buys Golf under the Christmas tree By Lee Pace We’ll soon utter good riddance, bon débarras (French), buon viaggio (Italian) and buen viaje (Spanish) to this dud of a virus-tainted year of [...]

The Tinsel War By Matthew Moriarty If there is one thing my father and I agree on this holiday season, it’s that this is going to be, unquestionably, a tinsel year. You see, my older sister, [...]

Winter Visitors You’ll know this clever nuthatch by its color and its call By Susan Campbell Every few winters, an irruption of wintering finches wings its way to the Southeast. This is [...]

Photographs by John Gessner We’ve all had bad days. Occasionally it’s been a tough week. And some months are better than others — blistering heat in August and ice storms in February come to [...]