ALPENA — Now that Thanksgiving is in the rear-view mirror the Christmas season is in full swing. The holidays are special to the residents of Northeast Michigan, as it is for the staff at The News. To properly recognize Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Years The News intends to share as many ...

Thanksgiving is the most American of holidays. But there is something almost un-American about it. It is a day opposed to striving, to getting more. We stop adding up the numbers in our accounts. We freeze in place to give thanks for whatever is there. Today's big issue is "affordability." But ...

As we are now upon another holiday season, celebrating Thanksgiving, I am especially grateful to be able to spend this time with my mother and friends. Since baking turkey is one of my signature dishes, my friends often tease me because I go to at least three grocery stores to find the best ...

In a year marked by political vitriol in seemingly every conversation, a relentless scourge of political violence, and the highest-profile political assassination since 1968, Thanksgiving arrives just in time. Truthfully, it always does. And it always reminds us that long before Americans were ...

Among my growing list of improper uses of the English language is the response I get when telling a restaurant server or anyone else "thank you." The usual response has been for as long as I remember, "you're welcome." For the young, especially, it has become "no problem." Why would thanking ...

Today I’m going to recommend a book for you to purchase as a gift. For others and for yourself. There are so many competing, jumbled, contradictory worldviews today that it can seem that life makes little sense. When my daughter was little, we could tell when she was getting sick. She ...