“Bob Rutan is legendary among the tight-knit fraternity of Macy’s Santa Clauses. Like many of these men, playing Santa changed Bob. Profoundly. His story is one of struggle and failure, heartbreak and grace and—yes—the magic of Christmas.”
holidays
Posted inFeature
’Tis the Season to Kill the Dead-Mom Holiday Movie Trope
How many more women will festive filmmakers dispatch?
Posted inBooks, Commentary
The Longreads 2019 Holiday Gift Book Guide
Let Longreads help you with your holiday shopping! We’ve made a catalog of books we featured in 2019 that we think would make great gifts for everyone on your list.
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 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
Etgar Keret on Why Yom Kippur Has Always Been His Favorite Holiday
Yom Kippur was always my favorite holiday. Even in nursery school, when all the other kids liked Purim because of the costumes, Hanukkah because of the latkes, and Passover because of the long vacation, I was hooked on Yom Kippur. If holidays were like kids, I once thought when I was still a boy, then […]
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 […]