In an effort to stick to some sort of budget and keep things lively, I dubbed this year “Thrift Store Christmas.” All that meant, in the end, was that I spent a lot of time in Goodwill buying Pyrex and crystal bowls I used as cactus planters, trimmed with vintage plastic Christmas deer and Santas […]

A couple weeks before Halloween, I was driving to work and noticed they were putting holiday lights on the trees that line Mill Avenue, the main drag in our college town. I started to harrumph — and I stopped myself. This year, I vowed, I will not complain about how early the holidays start. I […]