AP-GfK poll: Cards, gifts cross religious lines
Christmastime is here and a new poll reveals the cards and gifts that are part of celebrating the holiday are ubiquitous.
Our View: As Christmas Day approaches …
As of today, there are nine shopping days remaining before Christmas.
Slimantics: When a ‘thank you’ is enough
Tess and I finished decorating the Christmas tree early Saturday evening. We turned the lights out and examined our handiwork, with only the colored lights on the tree illuminating the den, and pronounced it a success.
Columbus Christmas parade is Saturday night
The 2014 Columbus Christmas Parade is Saturday night. It begins at 7 p.m. and takes its normal route: down Main Street then back up College Street.
Slimantics: The elusive ‘spirit’ of Christmas
I’ve come to believe that Christmas is state of mind and, therefore, pretty much a matter of timing.
CMSD partners with CPD for toy drive
The Columbus Municipal School District is partnering with the Columbus Police Department to bring toys to local children this Christmas.
CPD kicks off annual toy drive
The Columbus Police Department is asking for donations to help make Christmas special for local children.
Murray to lead Christmas Parade
The Columbus Christmas Parade is going to have a younger feel this year.
Christmas in July: TV week of holiday programming
The Hallmark TV channels are beginning a week’s worth of holiday programming on the Fourth of July — but think ornaments and egg nog instead of fireworks and hot dogs.
Santa’s sleigh delayed after snags at UPS, FedEx
Santa’s sleigh didn’t make it in time for Christmas for some this year due to shipping problems at UPS and FedEx.
Thousands left without power across northern U.S.
Utility crews from Maine to Michigan and into Canada worked Wednesday to restore power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses left in the dark by last weekend’s ice storm, and people slowly trickled out of shelters to spend Christmas Day at their finally warm homes.
Our view: Christmas is at hand … mercifully
Christmas is near at hand. We know this not by a simple glance at the calendar, of course.
We know it is Christmas from the faint aroma of burned credit-card plastic, thinned wallets, frazzled nerves, small children whose behavior is suspiciously good, a lack of attention to detail to every-day duties and the inability to understand “why everybody just won’t get out of our way, for crying out loud.”
Churches celebrate with special services
Several area churches are having evening services tonight and encouraging people to come and celebrate the birth of Christ.
Holiday sales down for 3rd week
Stores are hoping Americans who’ve been tight-fisted with their money will get the last-minute itch to buy in the final week of the holiday shopping season.
Of Christmas and second chances: Fayette’s ‘Christmas at the Park’ is about much more than lights
“Columbus, Mobile, Amory, Caledonia, Huntsville, Starkville … ” Doris Brasher read down the list in a small, spiral notebook she keeps in the gingerbread house that serves as a welcome station for Christmas at the Park in Fayette, Ala. “There’s Wyoming, Alaska, Germany and Beijing, China,” she went on.
Doris and her husband, John, like to know where visitors to the annual Christmas display come from.
Ask Rufus: Christmas dinner
On Friday Karen and I made a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up a couple of last minute items for next week’s Christmas dinner. Several hours later while stuck in traffic I pondered on Christmas dinner in times past.
Holiday stress: How to cope
A local psychologist is offering advice to ease some of the pressures of holiday stress.
“The first thing you have to do is define stress,” Carrie White, clinical coordinator of Baptist Golden Triangle Behavioral Health Center, said. “What is stress? If you think about it, stress itself does not exists. There is no such thing.”
However, White said there are “stressors.”
Tooth Fairy a walk in park over Elf on the Shelf
Carly Kerby, a mom of four girls, doesn’t have the greatest track record as the Tooth Fairy, but it was another family tradition that nearly did her in: The Elf on the Shelf.
Holiday shopping season: A disappointment so far
Sparse crowds at malls and “50 percent off” signs at The Gap and other stores offer clues as to how this holiday season is shaping up so far: It’s the most discount-driven one since the U.S. was in a deep recession. It’s also the most disappointing for stores.
A home for the holidays: Habitat for Humanity makes a dream come true, just in time for Christmas
The old, sentimental Christmas standards about home have never had more meaning for Tiffany and Terry Boykin of Columbus. Perry Como’s “Home for the Holidays” and Bing Crosby’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” seem to carry a deeper message this time around.
On Christmas morning, the Boykin family will wake up in a new house, one they have worked hard on, alongside Columbus-Lowndes Habitat for Humanity volunteers.