The Case for Santa Claus
I doubt eight-year-old Virginia understood the New York Sun’s answer to her query about the authenticity of Santa Claus. I read the famous article countless times as a little girl trying to grasp the editor’s justification that Santa Claus did…
Have a Heart
The anatomy of the human heart bears no resemblance to the red and pink hearts so prevalent on Valentine’s Day. Curious? Galen, known as the father of medicine in the second century, described the heart as a “three-chambered organ shaped like…
K-ROD’s Jewels
I shall never forget my ninth birthday for on this day, my mother took me to get my ears pierced. A young girl no more than 20 years old marked a little dot with a blue felt pen on my…
Fast Forward
On a warm October evening about two years ago, a group of friends from Chatham, New Jersey boarded a late afternoon train on route to Manhattan to celebrate the launch of Madeline Niebank’s first book, Fashion Fwd How Today’s Culture…
Maria’s White Gloves
My grandmother arrived in America in December 1930 after a horrific, vomit-inducing voyage on the rough Atlantic sea. She set sail from her homeland in Italy just three weeks before leaving her mother, father and four sisters behind. Barely twenty-years-old…
Love
I love this day solely dedicated to love in all its forms…..romantic, friendship or familial. Many poets and writers have tried to define love to no avail. St. Paul resorts to defining love by telling us what it is not….envious,…
Your Story
Of the numerous tasks undertaken during the holiday season, none is more time-consuming than the annual Christmas card. Each year, I plead, beg and bribe my sons to sit still and smile in a “normal” way, peruse hundreds of templates…
Gratitude
From the year my husband Adam and I married, we always hosted Thanksgiving. While setting tables, stuffing turkeys, popping fresh cranberries in simple syrup, mashing potatoes and stealing glimpses of the the Rockettes performing at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…
Handwritten
I recall my penmanship books in grade school with page after page of dots sandwiched between two long black lines. I learned to write cursive between those lines. We drew lower and upper case letters—hundreds of them—under the scrutiny of…
Fourth of July
If you are fortunate to grow up or raise a family in Chatham, New Jersey, you know that the Fourth of July is part of the fabric of the town. Each year, on this day, families gather by eight or nine…
Palm Beach Bag
Courtney Chmil, creator of Palm Beach Bag, is a cool girl. And it’s not because she is an alum of my beloved Fairfield University or that she’s bright and extremely well-spoken for her mere 25-year-old self–it’s because she has an…
A Wedding
I remember, as a child, my parents leaving my sister and me in the care of our grandmother and aunt while they went off to attend weddings. The next morning, I’d find dainty white tulle bags filled with Jordon almonds…
Easter
My childhood Easters were spent in Maryland with my six cousins. My sister and I were the youngest of the lot, and we relished being with them since they provided us with a peak into the fascinating world of teenagers.…
St. Baldrick’s Foundation
One day, when I was in college, my future husband asked me how much I’d be willing to donate to his friend, Sean if he shaved his head completely bald. Apparently, Sean needed some money, and in the mind of…
Fashion Forward
Every once in a while, someone takes your breath away. Twenty-three-year-old Maddi Niebanck took mine away when she published her first book, FASHION FWD How Today’s Culture Shapes Tomorrow’s Fashion, a unique look into the future of the fashion industry as…
A Christmas Carol
Each year, without fail, I read it. For the past six years, I have read it aloud with my youngest son even though he is more than capable of reading it by himself. I read it because it reminds me…
