mutterhood Fresh-cut pine. Cinnamon glaze on warm baked ham. Peppermint candy canes. Gingerbread just out of the oven. Hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows. New snowfall. Holiday evergreens. A crackling fire. Wet woolen mittens drying on the radiator. Sugar cookies. Lit candles glowing on a table, lavender and pine scenting the air. …
We’re all about family here at mutterhood, but a little family can go a long way. And while there are always lots of holiday activities to do together, like ice skating, catching a movie, taking a hike or even playing a game of touch football, sometimes all that togetherness can …
A holiday treasure in Chicago was itself a gift to the Art Institute of Chicago. The Thorne Miniature Rooms comprise 68 models of European and American interiors that recreate in exact detail the rooms of our past, from the late 13th century through the 1930s. Built on a scale of …
The Whos down in Whoville enjoyed rare Who roast beast, but that’s not the strangest holiday food we know of. Mutterhood recently paged through a few cookbooks from the late 1950s for holiday favorites that may or may not have stood the test of time. Jell-O molds. Apricot, cherry, orange …
This picture of my mother, Sharon, and her sister Arlene is prominently displayed every holiday season. It was taken around 1944 on a visit to Chicago to see the holiday decorations. In her own words, my mother describes the day this picture was taken, a story we hadn’t heard before. …
When you’re a kid, there’s nothing worse than opening a pretty, wrapped box only to find socks. I mean, you know deep down that they’re under the tree because you got them last year, and the year before, and the year before that from your grandmother or your mom or, …
Holiday preparation involves lots of idle time running errands, cooking, wrapping, traveling. Why not grab your headphones and put that time to good use? The number of podcasts exploded in 2018. Today, listeners can choose from more than 550,000 shows with 18.1 million episodes in over 100 languages, and that’s …
It’s Christmas Eve in Iceland and all through the house not a creature is stirring … because everybody’s reading. It’s a tradition called Jólabókaflóðið, or Yule book flood, where people gift each other books and spend Christmas Eve at home with family, reading. Icelander or not, it’s a fact that …
It’s just before Thanksgiving, 1972. I’m lying on the living room rug, propped up on my elbows, sunlight streaming through the window. My brother is next to me; we’re seven and nine, and we are psyched. Open on the floor in front of us is the Sears Christmas catalog, and …
Much of what makes the holiday season special is wrapped up in tradition: the ritualization of an activity, a prayer, a family recipe that continues from year to year. One of my favorite family traditions is the search for what we call Santa Notes. When my siblings and I were …