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Don’t Let the Grinches Steal Your Christmas 2
- Culture, Featured
- December 21, 2023
This Christmas season, the grinches are staying busy as usual. There’s the usual crew who annually devote themselves to debunking the season, flailing away at everything from a babe born in a manger to the season’s extravagant buying and selling to taking offense when someone says, “Merry Christmas!” In Iowa, Satanists have honed in on
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The Importance of Being Jolly 1
- Culture
- December 21, 2023
In the common parlance of modern America, the word “jolly” has fallen distinctly out of use. While words like “fun” and “happy” abound in everyday conversation, “jolly” is, in the minds of many, inexorably tied to Christmas. Traditional carols have kept the word alive in reference to the festivities of this season; one would be
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7 Timeless Picture Books for the Christmas Season 0
- Literature, Featured
- December 20, 2023
“Aletheia!” A 7-year-old girl grabs my hands and pulls me through the playing kids toward my church’s stash of books. “Will you read us a story?” The kids at my church enjoy picture books year-round, but—during the holiday season—the stories begin to revolve distinctly around Christmas. Several of these stories are ones I enjoyed when
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Christmas Shopping for a Happier New Year 1
- Culture
- December 20, 2023
Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If this is so, many of us are more cynical than we realize because we don’t know the difference between price and value. We buy the cheapest because this is our duty as good consumers. We need
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Light in the Darkness: We Need Your Help to Keep It Bright 2
- Donate
- December 19, 2023
My son’s house sits at the crest of a hill in a valley in the mountains of western North Carolina. On a recent visit, I was up at 4 a.m.—I’m an early riser—sipping coffee on the deck and looking at the litter of stars in the sky on that clear October night. Other than two
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Giving Before Getting 2
- Culture, Featured
- December 19, 2023
When I was a little girl, my mother would take me and my five siblings to Grants, a long-gone discount store. We did this the first week in December every year, shopping for each other using money we had earned and saved. Running down the aisles, touching everything, brimming with excitement, and bursting with secrets,
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