ArcaMax

Q. I don’t hate my ex, and I’d like to get him a little something for Christmas. What’s good ex-etiquette?

A. I have multiple answers to your question. Do you have children or not? Using the children as qualifiers, that will help determine my answer.

If you don’t have children, how will the present be received, and what is the ...Read more

Q. My son recently married a woman with four children. They also have a baby together, my only grandchild. We are expecting a lot of company for the upcoming holiday, and I have asked my son to bring my grandchild but leave his wife’s children at home. There’s just not enough room. Now he’s refusing to come, and I’m broken-hearted. What ...Read more

The kitchen becomes my primary place of residence the week before Thanksgiving and continues straight on through New Year's Day. I should probably file a change-of-address card with the post office.

The kitchen counter is littered with crumpled dish towels, soiled hot pads and towering stacks of dirty cookie sheets and mixing bowls. Pots ...Read more

Last fall, 46-year-old lawyer Priti Langer took a trip to Baltimore with a group of fellow women to see singing greats Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks perform.

The outing was a 50th birthday celebration for a friend and neighbor in Langer's Fairfax, Virginia neighborhood. When Langer rolled her suitcase into the hotel, she felt a flutter in her ...Read more

Award-winning author Bill VanPatten tends to capture all those acts and emotions in his characters, drawing heavily on gay themes and Latino heritage in and around the small, fictitious town of Mañana, situated in California, which he describes as “a patchwork quilt of cities and small towns, urban areas and vast agricultural lands, foggy ...Read more

The holiday season is meant to be a carefree celebration, bringing people together to enjoy each other’s company and traditions. As it overlaps with the end of the year, people hope to leave the daily stress of normal life behind and enjoy time with the ones they love.

This goal becomes complicated, however, when the desire to have a perfect ...Read more

Feeling the elf-haustion? Does coming up with new adventures for your nighttime Santa spy have you stressed out? Holly (or Buddy or Snowflake) doesn’t need elaborate setups or expensive props to keep the wonder alive.

Here’s how to reclaim the joy while saving your sanity.

Keep it simple, Santa

“The elf just has to move, no need to ...Read more

What is U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson waiting for? Months ago, the Louisiana Republican was handed broadly popular legislation to protect children from the harms of social media. But he vowed this week not to allow a vote in his chamber until Donald Trump is sworn in as president and a new Congress convenes. Stalling the protections is wrong ...Read more

'KRAVEN THE HUNTER'

Rated R for strong bloody violence, and language.

What it’s about: This Spider-Man antihero gets his own stand-alone movie and origin story in this comic book adaptation.

The kid attractor factor: Kids may be drawn to the superhero genre.

Good lessons/bad lessons: Walk your own path but be aware of your motivations.

...Read more

We have officially entered the "Hard to Buy For" season of life. I am reminded of this every time someone asks me what we'd like for Christmas. No one has said we are hard to buy for in so many words. It's more the looks -- the eye rolls, the raised eyebrows, the barely suppressed expressions of shock and horror.

"We like those little books of ...Read more

Q. My husband’s kids come back to our home with all sorts of stories about their mother and what they do at her house. I feel like I have no privacy. I have told the kids on multiple occasions that what goes on at our house is our business, and I don’t care what goes on at their mother’s home, but they continue to talk about it over there...Read more

It is a grey November morning when an American foreigner in the Peace Corps makes his way through Ukraine aboard a cramped bus. Here, in an unfamiliar land, he hopes he can start fresh and leave his Army days and the war behind him, but he has yet to reconcile with a past he is trying to forget.

Inspired by author Caleb Shawn Sully’s own ...Read more

Dr. Zerelda Esquer Garrigos was in medical school when she became fascinated by a 1926 book about the discovery of microbes.

"I was captivated by the idea that there are countless 'worlds' within our own – microorganisms that coexist with us, often without our awareness, yet some can cause disease," she said about Paul de Kruif's scientific ...Read more

“What the heck is going on in Leonardo’s message!”

In a masterful work with particular appeal for amateur sleuths, historians and art aficionados, author D. Allen Henry has crafted a thoughtful novel, "Killing Genius: The Mysterious Last Days of Leonardo da Vinci," based around the premise that Leonardo da Vinci’s death was a murder.

...Read more

'Y2K'

Rated R for bloody violence, strong sexual content/nudity, pervasive language, and teen drug and alcohol use.

What it’s about: A period horror comedy set during New Year's Eve 1999, during which the Y2K bug actually causes the robots to rise up and attack a small town.

The kid attractor factor: Teens will be drawn to the horror genre ...Read more