I just came back home after being away for two nights and three days. The feeling of refreshment and renewal felt so good that it inspired me to write this story for you. This year has been a challenging one as I am sure many of you can relate. In addition to the normal challenges […]
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” popularly known as “Santa’s ninth reindeer,” is usually depicted as a young calf with a glowing red nose who barely has antlers. He is the lead reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve. The luminosity of his nose is so great that it illuminates the team’s path through even the worst […]
The modern-day nutcracker was introduced to the United States after WW2, when our soldiers brought them home from Europe as souvenirs for friends and family. The originals were artists’ creations as decorations in Germany, and the beautiful sculptures have become a Christmas staple since Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite” and the ballet created in its name […]
T’was six days before Christmas – St. Nick drawing near, I cornered my husband and with tact said, “my dear”- The lights and adornments for our Christmas tree are upstairs and they aren’t being
The first reference to Santa’s sleigh being pulled by a reindeer appears in Old Santeclaus with Much Delight, an illustrated children’s poem published in New York in 1821. The names of the author and the illustrator are not known. The poem, with eight colored lithographic illustrations, was published by William B. Gilley as a small […]
Anti-biotics first came into being in the 1930-40s and really blossomed after WW II. Now we have resistance to anti-biotics creating an even bigger problem. But the flu is different, as the flu is caused by viruses and therefore will not respond well to anti-biotics. If you demand anti-biotics for colds or the flu you […]
In our January/February newsletter in 2014, we touched upon the Alfred Kinsey Institute, along with Hugh Hefner and Playboy’s intrusion into the public schools via funding the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), a major source of sex education materials in the public school and created by Kinsey in 1964. These […]
Elsewhere I’ve written about many myths and outdated grammar that people routinely think are correct, and they’re driven crazy by authors who are “wrong.” In some cases the authors are wrong, in many cases they are right and the reader is wrong, and in many other cases, either way of saying it is fine.
Reaching out to young adults on this topic actually bears out NWC Editor JoLinn Kampstra’s original reason for assigning this series of articles: her concern that hands-on hobbies that provide welcome diversion from the hustle and bustle of life in post-electronically wired America are near to extinct among the Millennial Generation. We wondered specifically about […]
The pilgrims arrived in North America in December 1620. By the fall of 1621 only half of the Plymouth Pilgrims, who had sailed on the Mayflower, survived. The survivors, thankful to be alive, decided to give a thanksgiving feast. The first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three days. The Pilgrim leader, Governor William Bradford, had organized the […]