An Easy, Breezy New Year
Gleaned from our archives: three refreshing takes on the traditional New Year’s vow.
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Articles onFamily & Friends
December 31, 2018: Happy New Year!
The Husband and I have “big” plans for closing out 2018 and welcoming 2019. We will be alone in front of the fire to toast the New Year with champagne and a kiss at midnight.
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Managing Christmas Chores So You Can Have Some Christmas Fun!
Try to have a little fun when you are doing all the work to make Christmas nice for everyone else.
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A Thanksgiving Medley
[From Our Archives]
A medley of reflections from our contributors about the day we set aside each year to celebrate generosity, gratitude, and goodwill.
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The Beauty of Friendships Among Women
[From Our Archives]
Today is International Day of Friendship — a way to honor the invaluable sisterhood in our lives, the community of women who surround us with joy, laughter, friendship, and fellowship.
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The Many Shades of Fatherly Love
[From Our Archives]
Our writers have experienced many shades of fatherly love—conditional, unconditional, warmly comforting, wintry, authoritarian, nurturing, judgmental. For Father’s Day—this Sunday, June 17—we present these varied memories.
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Fathers—Judged By a Different Standard?
We love our fathers, and we need them. Father’s Day offers a chance to reward the good ones, forgive the imperfect ones, and educate the bad ones.
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Understanding and Forgiving our Mothers
The final therapeutic phase involves letting it go, which can only occur if we understand and forgive. This happens when we put ourselves in our mother's shoes, empathizing with her and recognizing how she became the person she is.
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The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Mother
All of a sudden, I recognized the wisdom of the Windsors' concept of "the heir and the spare." Not that any child of ours would reap royal rewards. But it would certainly have softened the blow to have another child or two to focus on once my baby was gone.
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Unconditional Love: A Wise Grandmother’s Advice
Being a grandparent is a tricky process nonetheless, but if you navigate it right, the joys are bountiful.
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Gift-Giving: How Can I Stop Overspending
“Our family has always had such a good time being together at Christmas, and I don’t want things to change, though I see that they must. What should I do?”
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Right-Sizing Christmas Eve
I right-sized Christmas Eve in our family calendar. But something was missing. Ah. . . there was no stress.
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A Grandmother’s Worries
Fears of war have always been present. But today there are several worries that are entirely new. Though we always feared we might destroy each other, the idea that we might destroy our planet is a fairly new one. What kind of future will our young people inherit?
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Memorial Day: A Day To Remember Those Who Died In Active Military Service and Those Left Traumatized
There are those of us who mourn those who returned to lives that were never fully lived due to post traumatic stress.These men, in their 80s and 90s, still talked about the recurring nightmares, the unexpected flashbacks, the isolation that they had endured after the war was over.
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Being A Mother — The Role of A Lifetime
Motherhood causes a shift in identity that may occur suddenly, but remains stubbornly in place ever after.
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