Author Archive for: Editor
Entries by Jeff Westover
Perils of Playing Santa
The cat-and-mouse game of hiding the Christmas presents begins as soon as a black Friday bargain is found. Whether you are hiding gifts from your significant other or your children the game can be intense. Take, for example, the year of the drum set. My then 10-year old son had his heart set on a […]
Real Onion Dip
The staple of all dip standards when it comes to year round entertain is the timeless combination of Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix with sour cream. Have that and your dips will be a hit. But what if you want an onion dip with a little zing…a little surprise shot of freshness, a dip that makes […]
History of the Tradition of Elves
Lost in the romance, fantasy and some would say mystery and myth of Christmas is the concept of elves. Most folks today think of Santa’s helpers, often in the form of little people, who work at the North Pole busily making toys for good children everywhere. But elves in that vein are a relative recent […]
Mr. Dog’s Christmas at Hollow Tree Inn
As a boy one of my secret adventures was to scour the bookshelves at my grandmother’s house for books I could not find anywhere else. Grandma and I were a match made in heaven – I was a bookworm and she was a school teacher. I read not only from her vast collection of Reader’s […]
The History and the Mystery of Santa’s Wink
Santa’s wink is missing. British fans of Christmas are taking to social media to vent over a change in Coca Cola’s traditional Christmas commercial that shows Santa handing a bottle of Coke to a little boy and then winking at him. That wink from Santa is meaningful. It has been around for a long, long […]
Five Must See Movies Over Thanksgiving Weekend
Thanksgiving represents a lot of traditions in American culture. Some enjoy the parade, others get into the football and some are all about the food. For many, it is a simple day of being together and playing games. Thanksgiving, more than any other holiday, really is a true holiday. Everything stops for something different. Thanksgiving […]
Sainsbury Christmas Story
If there is one thing that separates British and American Christmas celebrations it has to be the commercials. Simply put, American commercials are short and sell hard while British commercials are mini-movies with huge production values and frequently tug at the heart strings. No wonder the commercials in the UK are so widely anticipated. Sainsburys […]
Santa Claus of the 19th Century
While Christmas in America predates the American Revolution Santa Claus did not make a splash in America until 1810. He arrived, as many Americans do, in New York City. Local merchant and leader of a local historical society by the name of John Pintard objected to the roughness of Christmas as it was celebrated in […]
Peter Hollens Releases What Child Is This
Peter Hollens brings us his 2nd new video from his Christmas album, A Hollens Family Christmas – What Child is This? Hollens calls it a follow-up to his smash video release last year of Mary, Did You Know? What Child is This? Has a long history as a Christmas carol. The tune – Greensleeves — […]
The Economy and Etiquette of Gift Cards for Christmas
There seems to be a love/hate relationship many have with gift cards. Some call such items impersonal while others embrace gift cards as quite the thoughtful gift. Like them or not, gift cards have become one of the most popularly exchanged items of Christmas. According to giftcards.com more than $100 billion is spent on gift […]
Dan Stevens to Portray Charles Dickens
Dan Stevens — the actor once-upon-a-time who played Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey — has been cast to play Charles Dickens in a new movie to be titled The Man Who Invented Christmas. This is a project both to greatly anticipate and to loathe. The story of Dickens and his creation of A Christmas Carol […]
