A recent poll found food prices overall putting the pinch on American spending plans for Christmas but grocers are bracing for the coming backlash for one of the priciest increases in holiday food costs: eggnog. Common pricing in stores early in the holiday season show eggnog topping $6 in some markets for just a half […]
The battle lines are being drawn all around us. The rumblings of discontent and the cries of revolution are warming up. There is a storm coming. It is called Thanksgiving. It never used to be this way. Way back in the old days when I was a kid — when the world was all in […]
The annual Christmas concert of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City is a PBS tradition each season and this year some PBS veterans are joining the party for the first time: the Muppets will be featured guests for the 2014 show. Joining them will be Broadway star Santino Fontana, who appeared with the […]
By Mac Carey Gingerbread is a popular Christmas treat all over the world, in many different forms. Gingerbread first appeared in central Europe in the Middle Ages, made from sugars and spices that had been brought back from the Middle East by soldiers returning from the Crusades. In England, gingerbread only meant “preserved ginger,” referring […]
By Jeff Westover There is a saying common among Christian believers: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” This saying speaks to the eternal nature of the soul and that thought is at the very center of Christmas. In countries around the world Christmas is […]
Canada celebrates Thanksgiving next Monday on October 13th. Some think this tradition of Thanksgiving in Canada is kind of a copycat affair to emulate their southern neighbors. Nothing could be further from the truth. While the national recognition of Thanksgiving officially making it a holiday on the 2nd Monday of October didn’t happen until 1879, […]
By Merry Carey Today, Christmas in July is an occasion to enjoy a taste of the Christmas season in the summertime—or in the wintertime, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s also an occasion for Yule-themed shopping sprees and a flurry of out-of-season Christmas movies on the cable-TV networks. But did you ever wonder […]
The annual survey of Christmas by MyMerryChristmas.com reveals that 83 percent of Americans feel that Christmas is the most important event on the calendar. 70 percent recognize Christmas primarily as a religious holiday in origin but only 61 percent claim to actually infuse their celebration of Christmas with religious elements. The survey annually probes the […]
By Jeff Westover The history of Christmas through the ages is written in chapters of contrasting observance. One chapter could speak of the sanctity of the season, observed in hushed commemoration. And yet another chapter could speak of it as a season of riotous overindulgence, wild parties and outright mockery of things held sacred in […]
By B. Francis Morlan Editor’s Note: Every December the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia sends a Christmas tree to the City of Boston, Massachusetts. This story explains how that came about. December of 1917 was a time when the world was in transition. The horrors of World War I were known and the prospects of […]
By Jeff Westover (Author bias: We use an artificial tree in our home every holiday season but we do so under protest. If I could, I would use a real tree. But our choice of tree has nothing to do with environmental consciousness. The simple fact is that we live in a desert and real […]
