As a child, the word Advent meant one thing and one thing alone. Chocolate! I remember each year trying to be patient and only eat the chocolate prescribed for that specific day. Usually, a sort of bargain happened where I would eat 2-5 chocolates and then wait the appropriate amount of days before indulging again. […]
Pork Shoulder Steak By Tom Unfried So there we were in the fall of 1995, back at the hospital just a short time after our son Christian had been released after months of treatment for a bone marrow transplant. Complaining of severe pain in his abdomen, we knew the drill: get him to Children’s Hospital […]
The Hamlet By Jen Manglos It was my family’s worst Christmas ever. No, I’m not saying that for dramatic effect. It truly was. We were in the mist of my brother’s struggles with depression and suicide. He was in the mental hospital and furious at my parents for putting him there. And a Merry Friggin’ […]
Gird Your Loins, It’s The Christmas Baking Season By Lorraine Manglos About 25 years ago my husband started his own business. Not having much money for gifts at Christmas time, I made an almond toffee candy that he distributed to his clients. I made about 2-3 batches and that covered all the clients. As the […]
My family opened some of our gifts last Saturday before my brother left to spend Christmas day with his girlfriend’s family. Mainly we opened gifts from my brother (and he opened his gifts from us), but my family insisted that I open one of my gifts. Mom has been talking about this particular gift for […]
I do not often have favorites. Of anything. My taste in most things change frequently. I mean, for 6 months I loved my ketchup, mustard, A1, and cheese sandwiches. Now, you couldn’t pay me enough to eat that nastiness (in all fairness, I was in first grade when I was fond of that odd combo). […]
I’m suspicious of Carrie Underwood’s version of The Sound of Music (airing tonight). I mean, I love The Sound of Music. I watched it sporadically as a child, but it really started to sink in as a favorite a few years ago when I went to my first Sound of Music sing-a-long. If you haven’t […]
As we enter into the Advent season, I will be devoting my first post of the next three weeks to reflections on Christmas. Merry Christmas my friends! ………. Yesterday, a good friend of mine called unexpectedly. As we were catching each other up on our crazy lives, we spoke about our experience in seminary (we […]
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I have opinions. And I often like to voice said opinions. As we creep closer and closer to Christmas I begin to see my opinions on the celebration of this particular holiday whisper louder and louder in my ear. I think we can all agree that Christmas decorations […]