Family

Monday

Teresa Mull

Seed catalogs and their rejuvenating power

Winter’s bleakest days have set in. “The holidays” are a distant memory. Rose-colored resolutions to wake up earlier, eat healthier and exercise have gone the way of Dry January — all a wash, as you quickly discovered the only antidote for your Seasonal Affective Disorder was something equally cold and dark. You glimpse the N/A beers in the back of the fridge the same way you spy the sun — in passing, and with a feeling of faded hopefulness. As you lug bags of empty bottles to your sidewalk, you glance up at the brightish blob lending a hazy glow to the grayscale landscape. You deposit your clanging bag of glass and cans beside your Christmas tree’s corpse and shuffle back inside to refill the fridge and cover up reminders of your dalliance with the sober-curious.

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Nashville jimmy kelly's
Timothy Jacobson

Jimmy Kelly’s Steakhouse keeps a simple, good thing going

I have written before in these pages about declining standards in the restaurant world, which has less to do with the food than with the whole “experience” of dining out: the lack of tablecloths, the napkin-wrapped silverware, the to-go boxes, the slovenly informality of staff and customers alike. I stand by every word of it, which is why discovery, or rediscovery, of rare holdout occasions, in this diner-out, is sheer joy. One such exception, long known to me, Jimmy Kelly’s Steakhouse in Nashville, is exceptional in another sense, too. It has been in operation without interruption and under the same family ownership for eighty-nine years.

Wednesday

Jenna Stocker

The tragedy of corporate America’s anti-child messaging

My brothers and I grew up in a very active household. We were always busy with sports, schoolwork, and chores, and there was a constant revolving door of friends and teammates. Both of my parents worked full-time as business owners and as our informal chauffeurs. Along with thousands of meals to be prepared, loads of laundry to be done, fights to break up, and the occasional window to be replaced, ours was a house that was never quiet, especially when my brothers tapped their illegal fireworks stash. To an outsider, it might have looked like being in the middle of a domesticated Lord of the Flies. But there was a purpose to the madness and chaos. We learned conflict management, independence, fire safety, and the value of hard work and cooperation.

newborn

Wednesday

Clare Coffey

In praise of stuff

I am first reunited with the homely and comfortable: I settle myself in the familiar corner, under a blue knitted wool blanket, with a tag that reads Handmade With Love by Kathleen E—. To my right is one of my father’s many furniture creations, stumps of trees sanded down and finished, or scrapwood configured into striking geometric edifices. In the kitchen is the long work and dining table built by one of his buddies. Across from me is the shronk, a word in the family idiolect whose probable Pennsylvania Dutch origins have now been lost to time, which refers to the massive wooden hutch that my great grandmother had made from the paneling of her farmhouse.

Christmas dinner

Wednesday

Amy Rose Everett

A Christmas gift guide for dads

Buying for your dad. The man you would quite literally be nowhere without. Should be easy. Never is. Ask him what he wants, and I’d put good money on one of these responses: "Nothing." "A winning lottery ticket." Or my personal favorite, "A break." But look, whether he’s a meat and potato kinda guy or actually quite surprisingly into *insert niche cuisine here*, start with something edible. The man’s got to eat. Next, think about something he might actually use — that he’d never think to buy himself. You might have to spend some time working his new gadget/tool/sweater into his routine, but once the work’s been done it’s generally a pleasure to introduce a cool new thingamajiggy into your old man’s day-to-day.

gift dad

Monday

Bridget Phetasy

Have yourself a very basic Christmas

Humbug! I’ve written before in these pages about how much I loathe Christmas. It’s not just Christmas though: with the exception of Thanksgiving, because it’s all about eating and gratitude and football, I could never stand any of the holidays. This has gradually abated over the years as I’ve started creating traditions of my own here in Los Angeles, but I still resent the feeling of obligation. Then this year, a neighbor asked, “What’s your daughter going to be for Halloween?” That was the moment it struck me — I’m going to have to fully engage in the holidays now. All of them. No more hiding under the bed and letting them blow over. Turning off the lights and pretending Halloween doesn’t exist is not an option.

basic
Alexander Larman

Why is there no great Thanksgiving movie?

In about a month’s time, one of the most boring conversations in social media discourse will begin (assuming Elon Musk hasn’t taken Twitter away from us out of pique). "X is a Christmas film." "X is not a Christmas film." And so on, as keyboard warriors angrily debate whether the eclectic likes of Die Hard, Lethal Weapon and Love, Actually qualify for this designation, as purists claim on endless Reddit threads that a Christmas movie can only be so-called if the plot and events are entirely driven by the festive season itself. Even for those of us who would argue that Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life make the perfect Christmas double bill — wider designations of the term be damned — there is considerably less debate as to what makes a Thanksgiving film.

gingerbread
Hannah Moore

A gingerbread house divided

To celebrate my birthday, which falls six days before Christmas, my mother used to make gingerbread houses for me and a dozen of my friends. Every December, she set to work baking sheet after sheet of gingerbread. The baking would take up the first week of the month, and in the second she would assemble the houses, laying their icing foundations and sealing the four walls with crisp white frosting. These would dry in the basement laundry room, taking up every available surface. After school, I would peep at the houses and dream about my party. On the big day, my mom set out each perfect house at the formal dining room table, and we convened to decorate them.

christmas
Calla Jones Corner

My smorgasbord of Christmas traditions

Like many American families with multicultural members, my own family incorporates traditions to reflect different ways to celebrate Christmas. I count seven besides American: Swedish, English, Scottish, German, French, Swiss, Belgian. The first five are in the family DNA. The remaining two reflect countries where we have lived and raised our children. Growing up with Swedish immigrant grandparents under the same roof, my Christmas took on many Swedish customs, starting on December 13 with the celebration of Santa Lucia. Legend has it that the fourth-century saint was a child-martyr who brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs. A young girl is dressed as the saint, in virginal white, sashed in red, representing a baptismal robe and the blood of martyrdom.

Christmas
Priscilla M. Jensen

The magic of Christmas caroling

On Christmas Eve it began to snow. No one believed it at first; Christmas snow is very rare here and usually the hot air from our nation’s capital a few miles away keeps it too warm. But it was Christmas Eve and it was snowing, late in the afternoon before all the light was gone, a snowglobe snow that stopped us in our bustlings and meltdowns and general atmosphere of excited dread. It was just magical. The children were old enough not to count on snow and young enough to think of it as entirely fitting. And they were old enough to know some songs and young enough not to be embarrassed all that much by their parents. “Let’s go caroling,” I said. We’d unpacked the Santa hats; they and various wreaths of those silver sleigh bells were already lost around the house.

Tuesday

Mary Kate Skehan

Serving up a Half Baked Harvest feast

As one of eight children, I feel deep kinship with others who come from big families. Bunk beds, hand-me-down clothes, abject chaos at dinnertime — these are the staples of big-family life. Tieghan Gerard, the author of the food blog and cookbook series Half Baked Harvest, is one such kindred spirit. She comes from a family of ten, and began cooking as a tween to help with frenzied mealtimes. She soon started creating her own recipes for a food blog, which became three bestselling cookbooks and a four-million-follower Instagram. Her big-family backstory blends with her wholesome, rustic aesthetic: feeding a crowd, after all, involves creativity, resourcefulness and well-loved tools. I hoped I’d recognize some high-volume cooking tricks in Half Baked Harvest: Super Simple.

harvest

Sunday

Tony Woodlief

Politicians’ backstabbing family members are the worst

Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family. I recall Michael Corleone’s warning to Fredo from The Godfather every time I see a political candidate’s family members denounce him in public. Even mobsters understood that family comes first. Not in agreement are the fourteen relatives of US Senate candidate Adam Laxalt of Nevada, who have endorsed his opponent. Ten of them likewise posed for a photo with the state's Democratic governor in 2018. One of Laxalt’s cousins accuses him of “using the family name to pursue a political career,” a claim you’ll only hear because she’s using the family name to advance it.

Thursday

Bridget Phetasy

Greetings from the Newborn Bubble

I’m writing this from a place outside time, day, night or sleep. It’s a place filled with magic, milk and boobs on constant display. I’m writing from the Newborn Bubble. My baby, Matilda, was born a month ago and my brain is mush. So if this column ends up being little more than disjointed images and memories, incomplete sentences and trains of thought that get started but never leave the station, know that I am in a postpartum daze. I’ve started to write this piece literally dozens of times: my current view is a baby who passed out looking at her high contrast card. Her onesie is stained with spit-up. Is she breathing? My current view is a sleeping baby in a dock-a-tot, it’s 10:33 a.m. I should be sleeping because she is — but I can’t. Is she breathing?

newborn
family
Nate and Thomas Hochman

How to not argue at the dinner table

Family dinners, like almost every area of American life, have become a subject of fierce politicization recently. In the years following Trump’s election in 2016, readers of elite progressive outlets were treated to a long parade of thinkpieces urging Americans, in the words of a 2019 Atlantic essay from Ibram X. Kendi, “to liberate our relatives from their abusive relationship with Trump’s alternative reality.” “This Thanksgiving, It’s Time to Take on Your Conservative Relatives,” declared a headline in the Nation. Molly Jong-Fast called on readers to “Deprogram your relatives this Thanksgiving.” A 2017 GQ article was perhaps bluntest of all: “It’s Your Civic Duty to Ruin Thanksgiving by Bringing Up Trump.

Tuesday

Teresa Mull

Picking daffodils with my ancestors

Pennsylvania winters can be unyielding. Though the extreme, single-digit temperatures and mounds of sometimes-onerous (but always beautiful) snow come and go, the bleak, overcast skies tend to overstay their welcome, hanging around like a monochromatic weight on one’s psyche. “Western Pennsylvania is known for two things,” UPMC psychiatrist Dr. Lawson Bernstein told CBS News, “producing linebackers and one of the highest prevalence of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in the entire country.” Sigh. While I grumbled this morning about having to continue bundling up well into spring (it was 36 degrees), a bunch of cheery golden blossoms near the edge of the woods reminded me this was no time to feel sorry my myself.

Thursday

Calla Jones Corner

Table talk

I grew up in rural Connecticut, in a remodeled cow barn where my family sat at an antique hutch table for meals. The table with four comfortable Windsor chairs fit into a niche. My sister Christina and I weren’t allowed to join my parents for dinner at the table until we could hold a conversation. For me, that was at five. The rule came from my father, as that was how he’d been brought up. Once, when we were in our early teens, I whispered to Christina, “It’s King Arthur’s round table” — our father’s middle name was Arthur. I must have learned some British history and was probably showing off. My firm but gracious father wasn’t a king.

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Monday

Addison Del Mastro

The sad demise of Amish family-style restaurants

Every time I visit Pennsylvania Amish Country, it feels a little less like Amish Country. My parents were aghast when, in the mid-2000s, they visited for the first time since the 1980s (and for the first time with me) and found a massive outlet center along the main commercial drag. When my wife and I visited in 2017 — my first time since that childhood family trip — I was dismayed to see that the field in front of the Amish Farm and House had become a Target and its attendant parking lot. (I was only a little less dismayed when the landmark Congress Inn, with its out-of-place capitol-dome sign, met the wrecking ball.

Friday

Peter Wood

Black History Month and the usable past

This is Black History Month when we are invited to think through a certain spectrum of the people who came before us. As it happens, I am very much interested in black history. I wrote a book about it, 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project, and several books about diversity, and I have been working for several years on a nearly completed documentary about the early days of black theater and film. But, lacking any black ancestors, I must make do with my own sketchy line of progenitors. When I was growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, my father attempted to find his great-grandfather — GGF in anthropological parlance. GGF had an air of mystery since all anyone knew about him was his last name and GGM’s inveterate reply when asked about him: “He was lost at sea.

black history month

Thursday

Grayson Quay

Biden’s tax credit won’t convince women to have more kids

President Biden’s proposed federal budget includes a permanent expansion of the child tax credit that would cost $556 billion by 2025. Putting between $250 and $300 in the pockets of almost every American family every month sounds like a dream come true, both for those eager to alleviate child poverty and for pro-natalists. The latter group, though, should temper its enthusiasm. As my colleague Matt Purple argued in the American Conservative earlier this year, sending checks to parents would probably put a huge dent in child poverty. It might even be worth doing for that reason. But as country after country has learned, it won’t necessarily bring births back above replacement rate. For that, we’ll need a change in culture.

antiracist baby children

Thursday

Amber Duke

A tribute to my father

This essay is adapted from a speech I gave on July 18, 2021, at a memorial for my father, Philip M. Athey, who passed away at the age of 59.  I’d like to tell you all a little about my dad. My dad was the hardest working, most honest and most loyal man I knew. He would do anything for his family. By the time I was four or five he was already teaching me how to play tee-ball, hook a worm, shoot a bow and turn a screw — righty tighty lefty loose-y! Some of my favorite memories with my dad are from when we would go hunting and fishing. I remember him showing me how to place my feet when walking in the woods so I didn’t spook the deer, or how to cast my pole so the bait would land perfectly under an old dock.

phil athey