Wendy McClure recounts how an old audio tape of holiday music becomes a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
Christmas
Posted inNonfiction
An Addict, a Nurse, and a Christmas Resurrection
Working the night shift on an intensive care unit, Suzanne Ohlmann brushes up against death, Jesus, and her biological father.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
Take Script, Add Snow
The psychology behind America’s obsession with Hallmark Christmas movies.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Thrive as a Sober Queer Through the Holigays
In a piece that’s part personal essay and part service journalism, Molly Priddy shares how challenging it initially was going home for the holidays just after she got sober — and how it’s gotten better over the years. She also offers tips suggesting how others avoiding alcohol might get through the end-of-year forced family fun […]
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story, Writing
The Stuff That Came Between Mom and Me: A Story About Hoarding
Mom would make excuses about not having cleaned the house. I knew they were lies. I knew her house was full.
Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Writing
The Stuff That Came Between Mom and Me: A Story About Hoarding
Mom would make excuses about not having cleaned the house. I knew they were lies. I knew her house was full.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Case Against Christmas
Long after winter has ended, hating on Christmas remains popular sport, as much a holiday tradition as eggnog and overspending.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
What We Eat When We’re Eating at Christmastime: A Reading List
It’s always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.” “A Christmas Memory,” Truman Capote ’Tis the season! A time for awkwardly posed […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Home for the Holidays
As soon as we’re finished, Thad shuffles to the garage to grab two 150-or-so-gallon black garbage bags. We stuff all of the presents inside, double-knot the bags at the top, and drag them to the front door, confident that the next morning, not one of our kids — not even the nine-year-old — will wonder […]
Posted inReading List
Reading List: If Christmas Were Forever
I wish Christmas lasted forever. Okay, maybe not forever, but at least a week. I try to make this a reality by visiting different family members and friends and exchanging gifts during the week between Christmas & New Year’s, “forgetting” these gifts and having to revisit aforementioned friends, listening to Christmas music longer than conventionally appropriate, and […]