Wendy McClure recounts how an old audio tape of holiday music becomes a record of family history, unspoken rituals, and grief.
Christmas
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.
Take Script, Add Snow
The psychology behind America’s obsession with Hallmark Christmas movies.
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 […]
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.
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.
The Case Against Christmas
Long after winter has ended, hating on Christmas remains popular sport, as much a holiday tradition as eggnog and overspending.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]