AE Vol.3 Issue 12 - Preview

A me rican Es s e nc e

American Essence

DECEMBER 2023

FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY

The Holiday Issue

Santa’s Helper

Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast helped develop Kris Kringle’s image with his imaginative illustrations

Shooting for the Moon

DECEMBER 2023

Commander of the Artemis II mission Reid Wiseman on a new era of space exploration

VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 12

RENAISSANCE WOMAN No shortage of talent here: Actress Danica McKellar is a dancing dynamo and math whiz— above all, she’s an agent for good

w e i ev r P ent d ti e d Cont m cte i e l L f Se

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Holidays

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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The holiest of all holidays are those Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; The secret anniversaries of the heart, When the full river of feeling overflows; — The happy days unclouded to their close; The sudden joys that out of darkness start As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

Yosemite National Park Sierra Nevada, California

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail, White as a cloud that floats and fades in air, White as the whitest lily on a stream, These tender memories are; — a Fairy Tale Of some enchanted land we know not where, But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

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History 44 | America’s Star Child From the silver screen to the White House, Mrs. Shirley Temple Black served the world’s stage with her charm and steadfast perseverance.

48 | An American Tradition Celebrating Christmas with a decorated tree went from a forbidden act to a national tradition during the Victorian era.

52 | Why the North Pole?

Illustrator Thomas Nast helped Santa decide to live at the top of the world.

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CONTENTS First Look

Santa Claus, veteran James Brown takes the job very personally.

8 | Christmas Towns Embrace the holiday spirit and cozy vibes at these six destinations.

Features 10 | The Actress Next Door Whether she’s acting and dancing or encouraging young people to be their best, actress Danica McKellar is an inspiration.

16 | Space Explorations Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman gives insights into his exceptional crew, the mission goals, and an era of global cooperation.

22 | Spreading Holiday Cheer When it comes to portraying a good

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26 | Wreaths Across the Nation Volunteers pay tribute to our fallen soldiers by laying millions of wreaths at their final resting places.

32 | The Power of Trust Business coach and author Stephen M.R. Covey reveals a new framework for leading an organization.

36 | War Stories Journalist Jane Ferguson on the importance of listening.

40 | A Healing Journey Actress Jennifer O’Neill on embracing faith and family to overcome her tumultuous past—and how she’s helping veterans heal, too.

56 | The Washingtons Celebrate the Season Inviting friends and relatives to join them for the 12 days of Christmas, George and Martha Washington entertained their guests with music, dinner, and parties.

60 | Boundlessly Generous Thomas Nelson Jr., one of Virginia’s richest men before the Revolutionary War, chose freedom over his business.

64 | The Gift of Giving Declared “most beloved woman in Southern California,” Ellen Browning Scripps donated her wealth to fund major San Diego institutions.

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Lifestyle 82 | Ranch Hospitality How a seventh-generation cattle rancher lives, eats, and brings loved ones around her table.

90 | The Gift of Authenticity Psychologist and “midlife muse” Amanda Hanson guides women on their journey to self-love.

94 | Holiday Favorites Danny Trejo, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Duff Goldman share their must-have dishes.

Arts & Letters 68 | A Child Psychiatrist Speaks Up With many children currently swept up in the gender dysphoria trend, Dr. Miriam Grossman addresses how parents can protect them.

100 | American Sparklers Expert picks for bottles of bubbly for any celebration.

102 | Giving Thanks, the Old-Fashioned Way Handwritten gratitude will never go out of style.

104 | Transported in Time A castle in Southeastern Pennsylvania whisks visitors to the Middle Ages.

112 | Parting Thoughts Dr. Chris Palmer explains the connection between diet and mental health.

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74 | Three Civil Gentlemen Wes Davis explores the friendship and civil discourse among Ford, Edison, and Burroughs—despite their differences—in his new book “American Journey.”

76 | My Family Roots A writer recalls a stormy Christmas Eve and a holiday memory she’ll never forget.

78 | Why I Love America What’s so great about America? These students taking English for Speakers of Other Languages have answers.

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Editor’s Note Dear readers, First, on behalf of our entire magazine team, I would like to thank you for the encouragement and support you have given us this year. Each of your emails and letters has meant a great deal to us.

In the year ahead, we will focus on expanding our digital presence, improving the quality of our content, and reaching a larger audience. To make this possible, we have decided to publish American Essence on a bimonthly basis, starting in 2024. We hope that you’ll keep enjoying our stories, both in print and online.

For our final issue of 2023, we're celebrating the holiday season, and all its warmth and cheer, with stories that remind us we can carry its spirit all year long.

As we visit actress Danica McKellar, who embarked on a faith journey last year, we find that being of service to others has been part of her life for a long time, whether she is using her talents in acting, dancing—or math (page 10).

Or just ask James K. Brown of Warrenton, Virginia, how he has maintained the Santa magic while portraying Jolly Old Saint Nick for the past 10 years.

It’s a joyful responsibility that he doesn’t take lightly (page 22).

In our history section, we take a look at the beloved Shirley Temple, whose optimism and gratitude were hallmarks of her life (page 44); follow George and Martha Washington through several Christmases (page 48); and learn about Thomas Nast, the illustrator who gave Santa Claus a home, way, way up north (page 52) For some entertaining inspiration, look to Elizabeth Poett (page 82), who loves to cook for a crowd but keeps it simple at the same time. Being with the people you love and enjoying the moment is often the greatest gift.

Have a blessed holiday season.

Editor-In-Chief Editor@AmericanEssence.net

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American Essence FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY DECEMBER 2023 | VOLUME 3 | ISSUE 12

P UB L ISHE R

Dana Cheng E D ITORIAL

Editor-In-Chief Managing Editor Lifestyle Editor History Editor Arts & Literature Editors Editor-At-Large Production Manager

Channaly Philipp Annie Wu Crystal Shi Sharon Kilarski Sharon Kilarski Jennifer Schneider Tynan Beatty Astrid Wang

CRE ATIVE

Lead Designer Photo Editor & Designer Designer Photographer Illustrator

Marie Tatsiana Moon Sunny Lo Samira Bouaou Biba Kayewich

MARK E TIN G & SAL E S

Marketing Manager Marketing Assistant Sales Director Sales Assistant

Brett Chudá Jennifer Tseng Ellen Wang Onon Otgonbayar

CON TRIB UTORS

Sandy Lindsey, Tim Johnson, Dustin Bass, Anita Sherman Jeff Minick, Andria Pressel, Hazel Atkins, Ben Laurro, Stephen Oles, Dean George, Sally Humphries, Rachel Pfeiffer, Andrew Benson Brown, Debra Amundson, Patty Aponte, Eric Lucas, Xenia Taliotis, Kevin Revolinski, Annie Holmquist, Matthew John, Amy Denney American Essence (USPS 24810) is published monthly by Bright Magazine Group at 5 Penn Plz. Fl.8, New York, NY 10001.

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www.AmericanEssence.com

DECEMBER 2023

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SOCIAL CALENDAR

By Sandy Lindsey

★ WASHINGTON BALLET’S ‘THE NUTCRACKER’

Choo Choo!

NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW New York, N.Y. Nov. 17–Jan. 15 Large-scale model trains meander past nearly 200 miniaturized New York landmarks set in a twinkling winter wonderland in the cozy warmth of the New York Botanical Garden’s Conservatory. Savor fine bites, curated cocktails, and holiday music, then head outdoors to this year’s all-new Mountainscape experience and photo op and NYBG Glow After Dark. NYBG.org

★ WASHINGTON BALLET’S ‘THE NUTCRACKER’

Washington, D.C. Dec. 2–30 For many, it’s not the Christmas season without seeing “The

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Plunge Into the New Year

35TH ANNUAL SPECIAL OLYMPICS LOBSTER DIP South Augusta, Maine Jan. 1

On Your Toes

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Nutcracker.” The Washington Ballet gently reimagines this classic with an American twist: A patriotic George Washington is the Nutcracker who comes to life to battle the heinous Rat King. Set in the historic streets of Georgetown, with its iconic cherry blossom trees, the performance is a tribute to the area’s rich heritage. Featuring Tchaikovsky’s score, stunning sets, glorious costumes, and magnificent dancing, it is designed to awaken the inner child in even the most Scroogelike adult. WashingtonBallet.org

Hundreds of adventurous souls will brave the bracing winter water temperatures of the Atlantic to raise money for a good cause: Special Olympics Maine. The goal for 2024 is to break the current record of 516 first-time and

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veteran “dippers” who braved 42-degree wintry waters and raised a record-breaking $177,106. SOMaine.org Objet d’Art

THE ORIGINAL MIAMI BEACH ANTIQUES SHOW Miami, Fla., Jan. 11–15

A treasure hunt for oneof-a-kind finds, this highly anticipated annual event boasts over 600 domestic and international vendors of antiques, art, furniture, home decor, vintage fashion, jewelry, watches, silver, and collectibles.

On Complimentary Appraisal Day, a prestigious auction house will advise ticket holders on the value of their art, jewelry, and attic finds.

OriginalMiamiBeach AntiqueShow.com Bird Watchers Paradise

MORRO BAY BIRD FESTIVAL Morro Bay, Calif.

Jan. 11–15

Located on the Pacific Flyway, Morro Bay is a Globally Important Bird Area and a designated National Estuary.

In most years, over 200 different bird species are spotted during the festival, which features over 160 events including all-day and half-day field trips, workshops, presentations, master classes, and other special events, including programs for beginners and children.

MorroBayBirdFestival.org Alpine Celebration

WINTERSKOL Aspen, Colo., Jan. 13–16 In January 1951, locals decided to create a unique-to-Aspen Winterfest, and boy, has it snowballed! Bundle up for intown and on-mountain events including bonfires, fireworks, snow sculptures, concerts, Soupskol—where restaurants compete for the honor of “Best Soup in Aspen”—and the breathtaking torchlight descent down Aspen Mountain.

AspenChamber.org/events/ winterskol

CULTURE SHORTLIST DIRECTOR

Lev L. Spiro STARRING

Richard Thomas, Logan Shroyer, Bellamy Young, Ben Watson, Marilyn McCoo RELEASED

2021

‘COMMON SENSE’

Thomas Paine intended his pamphlet to be a strong defense of American independence from England.

And, although 247 years old, this brief volume includes a plethora of noteworthy statements still resonating with Americans today, such as: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”

STREAMING

Peacock

‘THE WALTONS: HOMECOMING’ Richard Thomas (the original “John Boy”) introduces this respectful, TV-movie reboot of the beloved, poor but devoutly Christian Walton family. They

are fortunate that their father is employed, given the Great Depression’s severity, but they worry whether he will return in time for Christmas, especially with a blizzard approaching.

(Not Rated, 1h 30m)

not included preview.

Publisher: Coventry House Publishing, 2016 Hardcover: 90 pages

‘ROAD TO SURRENDER: Three

Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II’

‘CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT’ Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) pens a popular syndicated column for a major magazine, posing as a quintessential housewife who lives with her husband and baby on a Connecticut farm. But when some unexpected guests decide to invite themselves to her house, her ruse becomes more complicated.

In this timeless holiday classic, Stanwyck is a veritable Janeof-all-trades, acting-wise. Her ability to switch effortlessly from drama to comedy to romance is incredible to behold. The rest of the cast is stellar as well, especially debonair Dennis Morgan as her war hero love-interest Jefferson Jones.

See why so many people consider it their must-see Christmas movie.

(Not rated, 1h 41m)

DIRECTOR

Peter Godfrey STARRING

Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet RELEASED

1945

STREAMING

DirecTV, Apple TV, Vudu

In August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. While some scholars insist these acts were unnecessary, historian Evan Thomas demonstrates—using three leaders, two American and one Japanese, to follow events—that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were needed to force Japan’s surrender.

Publisher: Random House, 2023 Hardcover: 336 pages

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Challenge Accepted One thing’s for sure: Danica McKellar doesn’t do things by halves—whether perfecting her dance moves, making math fun for children, or even living by her newly found faith

By Channaly Philipp

A

Ms. Danica McKellar, during her teen years, played Winnie Cooper in the coming-of-age sitcom “The Wonder Years.”

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fter a lifetime in southern California’s eternal sunshine, Danica McKellar made the move to rural Tennessee last year. It appears she’s taken a page right out of her Hallmark and Great American Family movies, which often take place in a small town filled with kindhearted people and blessed by seasonal beauty.

Since her move, the actress and producer has indeed been marveling at “the most amazing Bob Ross painting at every turn,” she said.

Ms. McKellar is widely known for playing the character of Winnie Cooper in “The Wonder Years.” The comedy-drama, which ran from 1988 to 1993, followed the highs and lows of young Kevin Arnold (played by Fred Savage). Set in suburban, middle-class America in the late ’60s and early ’70s, the series, and the messy and complex affairs of the heart it depicted, kept viewers coming back episode after episode. For many, their coming of age happened alongside the protagonists’—including McKellar’s character.

Ms. McKellar portrays a columnist named Kaleigh in “Christmas She Wrote” (2020).

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6 QUESTIONS FOR DANICA McKELLAR If you weren’t an actor, what would you be?

Can I say math book author?

Maybe a dancer.

Favorite music: I love so many styles of music. If it had to be one artist, it would be Billy Joel. He’s not one of these artists where all the songs sound the same.

Favorite dance: Whether it’s swing or cha-cha or waltz, partner dancing.

Favorite snack: I like canned mackerel, rice cakes, and sliced avocado.

Really healthy, really tasty, and super fast.

Favorite place in the world: I love Hawaii.

Favorite holiday: Christmas.

Etched onto the public consciousness, she became the epitome of the sweetness of first love. Late-night show host Jimmy Fallon once referred to Winnie Cooper as “the coolest girl in any TV show ever.”

An adult Kevin Arnold narrated: Once upon a time there was a girl I knew, who lived across the street. Brown hair, brown eyes. When she smiled, I smiled.

When she cried, I cried. Every single thing that happened to me that mattered, in some way, had to do with her. That day Winnie and I promised each other that no matter what, we’d always be together. … It was the kind of promise that can only come from the hearts of the very young.”

Math Whiz On-screen Winnie Cooper was smart and sweet, and because Ms. McKellar knew that young people were looking up to her character, she felt the need to live up to being a role model.

She went on to graduate summa cum laude from UCLA with a major in mathematics, with the distinction of co-authoring a mathematical physics theorem called the Chayes-McKellarWinn Theorem.

In 2000, she testified before a congressional subcommittee about the importance of women in math and science. When she read that young girls’ interest and confidence in math eroded significantly by the eighth grade, even though they performed as well as boys, she reflected on her own journey: No one ever told me I couldn’t do math or science; I just saw it as inaccessible and foreign. The strange thing is, at the same time that I harbored all of these self-doubts and feelings of alienation in regards to math, I was graduating high school with really good grades in math. True, I had struggled in middle school to even get a ‘C’ in math, but now I was in the top 3 percent of my high school, graduating with honors and an A+ in the highest AP Calculus course offered in the U.S.

Friends Candace Cameron Bure and Danica McKellar.

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She went on to write 11 math books for kids spanning ages 0 to 16. She knew that she had to change the stereotype about math and make it not only accessible but also cool, initially tar-

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“The relationship that matters the most is the one we have with God, that is the one that will carry us through anything.”

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geting girls at the middle school stage, a time when math gets harder and new social factors also come into play. Because of this, her bestselling books incorporate confidence-boosting messages.

As a homeschooling mom, she also dispenses inspiring tips. Her enthusiasm is infectious, whether she’s talking about the intriguing properties of cornstarch or making volcanoes.

On social media, she has posted a video of herself dressed as a fairy, reciting the first 139 numbers of pi for Pi Day (yes, March 14), set to the music of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

Acting and Dancing The challenge of math has always been a draw, but another side of her personality is her love of performing. She went on to make appearances on shows such as “The West Wing,” “How I Met Your Mother,” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

On the Hallmark Channel and at Great American Family, she has gravitated toward rom-coms “where everything works out.”

(Meantime, as a nod to the staying power of

not included preview.

her popularity, her name was dropped twice in the 2019 hit film “Knives Out,” in reference to the plot of a fake Hallmark murder mystery movie she was supposedly in. All this, to Ms. McKellar’s surprised delight.)

And then, there’s the dancing.

Ms. McKellar has made no secret of her love of dancing. She has said that dancing is in her DNA, as her mother was a professional dancer.

She trained intensively for the 18th season of “Dancing With the Stars,” placing sixth. Ice baths were par for the course at the end of the day, but she became a pro at making dancing look graceful and effortless.

That foundational training was incredibly handy when it came to her recent film “Swing Into Romance,” which was released on Great American Family earlier this fall. Portraying a former dance pro, Ms. McKellar puts on her dancing shoes with co-stars David Haydn-Jones and Gleb Savchenko, the latter hailing from “Dancing With the Stars.” You can tell she’s genuinely enjoying every minute on the dance floor.

“It’s a dream come true,” she said.

This Christmas season, she stars with Damon

Runyan in “A Royal Date for Christmas,” while another film, “Royal Christmas Ball” (there’s lots of waltzing involved), is in the works and likely to run Christmas 2024.

This Christmas season, Damon Runyon and Ms. McKellar star in “A Royal Christmas Romance” on the Great American Family cable network.

Christmastime Ms. McKellar enjoys preparing the house for Christmas, and although not a regular baker (healthy cooking is her modus operandi), this is the one time a year that she tackles her mom’s four-page recipe for a chocolate Yule log, which she and her son Draco, 13, festoon with marzipan figures and candy.

More importantly, Christmas has had a new meaning for her since last year. Ms. McKellar grew up in a household where universal values like honesty and doing the right thing were valued, but not a religious one. But in April 2022, she embarked on a faith journey when her friend, actress Candace Cameron Bure, invited her to a Passion play at church. It changed her life.

“The relationship that matters the most is the one we have with God; that is the one that will carry us through anything. That’s the one that gives that feeling of happiness and bliss that is

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The four crew members of the Artemis II mission to the moon (clockwise from top left): Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, and commander Reid Wiseman.

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Apollo 11

Apollo 17

Mission to the Moon

The Artemis II spaceflight, due to launch in November 2024, will take humans the farthest theyʼve been in space—beyond the moon for a lunar flyby before returning to Earth

By Dustin Bass

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n December 14, 1972, surrounded by darkness and light and standing where only 11 others had ever stood before, Gene Cernan became the last person to walk on the moon. As he prepared to depart, he announced over the radio, “As we leave the moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”

Cernan, commander of the Apollo 17 mission, died in 2017 and never got to witness another return to the moon. That hope of returning, however,

remains very much alive at NASA, and with the Artemis missions, mankind will once again take that giant leap to the moon.

ABOVE LEFT

The Artemis Missions

ABOVE CENTER

The first of the Artemis missions took place on November 16, 2022, with the unmanned Orion spacecraft traveling more than 1.4 million miles over the course of 25 days. The spacecraft traveled thousands of miles beyond and around the moon before it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere at nearly 25,000 miles per hour, finally splashing down into

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Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.

An astronaut’s boot and bootprint in the moon’s soil, taken during Apollo 11.

ABOVE RIGHT

Gene Cernan on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT

A test exercise of what it will be like to recover astronauts from the Orion spacecraft and get them back to a recovery ship safely.

A technician works on the heat shield for the Orion spacecraft that will carry astronauts around the moon during Artemis II. A new pressure vessel for the Orion spacecraft.

Working on a NASA mission involves all hands on deck.

A service module that will power Orion, being prepared in Germany by Airbus.

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the Pacific Ocean.

The next mission, Artemis II, is scheduled for a 10-day flight around the moon in November 2024 with a crew of four: mission commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, mission specialist Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency’s mission specialist Jeremy Hansen. For the Americans, it will be a return to space, but even for them, humanity has never gone this far away from Earth before. The Artemis II mission could break the record for distance traveled during a manned space flight.

“It will depend on where the Earth-moon system is when we launch,” said Mr. Wiseman, who has been a NASA astronaut since 2009. Apollo 13 currently holds the record, at 249,205 miles from Earth; Artemis II could end up reaching 10,000 miles farther. “Hopefully a year later, we will eclipse it again, and a year after that we will eclipse it again,” he said of future NASA missions.

The Artemis II mission is the beginning of what is expected to be not just a return to the moon, but eventually, the establishment of a base camp on the lunar surface, and a future trip to Mars. NASA’s goals are lofty, and Wiseman believes that those

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goals are not just achievable, but inevitable.

“I think we are definitely looking at humankind living on the moon, living on Mars, getting out into the solar system,” he said. “If you look back at what humans have done on Earth, we can’t sit still as a group of beings. We are restless and we are very inquisitive. I think we will always look at the moon and want to go there. And for those of us who find Mars in the night sky, we want to go there. I would love to go to the moons of Saturn and wake up in my living room and see the rings of Saturn in the morning. I think that is just where we are headed.

We are never going to quit.”

The Science Behind Artemis Mr. Wiseman explained that the primary reason for establishing a base camp is for research. He reflected on how after the Apollo 11 mission placed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, NASA’s scientific endeavors multiplied. The missions’ technological capabilities accelerated from Apollo 11 to Apollo 17, within a span of three years. Mr. Wiseman anticipates that the Artemis missions will similarly advance new technologies and unveil scientific discoveries, such as in the field of geology.

Mr. Wiseman hails from Baltimore, Md., and previously served in the U.S. Navy.

“I would love to go to the moons of Saturn and wake up in my living room and see the rings of Saturn in the morning. I think that is just where we are headed. We are never going to quit.”

Reid Wiseman, NASA Artemis II mission commander

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Although these early Artemis missions focus on exploration, he believes they will inevitably impact future scientific research.

“As you build the capabilities to go explore, the science begins to develop because this capability is here, and now we are going to exploit every ounce of it to gain as much human understanding as we can,” he said. Although the four astronauts of the Artemis II mission will not be landing on the moon, their trip around the moon will examine parts of the lunar surface that no one has ever seen before (the International Space Station has only been in low Earth orbit thus far). If the lighting is cooperative, “we’ll see the entire moon in one shot. We’ll have a chance to take pictures, to put human eyes and brains on it, and think about it in ways never thought before,” Mr. Wiseman said.

He also admitted that he and the other three crew members will themselves be research subjects. One of the objectives of this mission is to see how the human body reacts to traveling so far into space.

The Crew and Beyond The commander is proud of his crew. He highlighted how the team is not just extremely techni-

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James Brown donned the Santa suit 10 years ago, and he hasn’t looked back since.

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Here Comes Santa Claus Veteran James Brown pays tribute to the spirit of Jolly Old Saint Nick

By Anita Sherman

H

e goes by a number of names: Kris Kringle, St. Nick, Father Christmas, Jolly Ol’ St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, or Père Noël to name a few.

But to most of us, as December 25 draws near, we know this venerated figure in red as Santa Claus.

He appears in malls, retail stores, parades, charity events, and a plethora of private homes around the country. While Christmas Eve is his busiest day of the year, those who have the jolly task of role-playing Santa begin their season of goodwill months before.

Over the decades, the business of being Santa has spawned dozens of Santa Claus schools, conventions, and social media sites. For some, this merry-making may be about the money. The average Santa can make from $5,000 to $25,000 a season depending on the clientele.

But for James K. Brown of Warrenton, Virginia, Santa Claus is a persona that he takes very personally. Profit is not his main motivator.

The Magic of Christmas “It’s about giving back to the community,” said Mr. Brown, a U.S. Navy veteran who will celebrate his 10th year of being Santa this year.

Mr. Brown, a husband and father of four, wasn’t always able to be home for the holidays. Serving in the Navy for 20 years, he witnessed firsthand how military communities supported families. He was grateful.

“Santa was always there as a symbol or a beacon of light to the children that either Mommy or

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Daddy would be coming home when the deployment was completed,” said Mr. Brown, who hopes to instill in his own children a sense of generosity and community service.

Mr. Brown’s youngest son played a role in getting him to don a Santa suit. Mr. Brown used to host his local church’s Christmas party every year, a gathering of about 150 people. He wanted to find a Santa for the party, but he had a hard time finding one who could be hired for a reasonable price. He decided to be Santa himself.

“My youngest son was about 4 or 5 at the time. … I bought a suit and a beard. … He woke up and 100 percent loved it,” said Mr. Brown. From then on, he continued playing Santa for his church group. “I wanted to give back to the community, and I wanted the kids to be able to enjoy Christmas, the spirit of Christmas, and be able to enjoy Santa without breaking Mom and Dad’s checkbook,” said Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown quickly realized that being a professional Santa is much more than putting on the traditional red suit. There’s a responsibility to maintain Santa’s magic and the spirit of Christmas.

Storyteller, historian, comedian, performer, counselor: The roles of Santa Claus are multifaceted. The Mr. Brown re-enacts cooking carrots for reindeer, at the Fauquier History Museum at the Old Jail in Warrenton, Va. The photo-op was for his recently published children’s historical fiction, “Santa Visits the Old Jail.”

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more Mr. Brown thought about the power of Santa and all that it embodies in the hearts and minds of children and adults, the more he became interested in the history of Santa Claus. He learned that Santa evolved from St. Nicholas, a bishop from the third century known for his gift-giving and charitable works. The transition from St. Nicholas to Santa Claus began in Holland. Santa’s appearance on Christmas Eve is aligned with the birth of Jesus Christ on Christmas Day, December 25. “There are a lot of Santas nationwide that won’t touch the religious side,” said Mr. Brown. But he isn’t one of them.

As an independent Santa who primarily makes home visits, Mr. Brown is very comfortable blending the secular and religious versions. As a Christian, he is faith-driven and, when asked, will gladly share “the reason for the season.”

To fully embody Santa’s persona, Mr. Brown felt that he needed to learn more about Santa’s history.

He began researching all the historical information about Santa Claus and putting it down in a book, “Beyond the Beard: Exploring the Collective History of Santa,” which was published in June 2023.

Historical facts are sometimes interwoven with myth. The famous poem “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” is credited to Clement Clarke Moore,

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but its true authorship is debated among literary circles. Cartoonist Thomas Nast’s depiction of Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly during the mid-1800s helped create the visual of Santa that we all know today. Coca-Cola further promoted the image of a jolly, plump, and cheerful Santa for its advertising.

Putting On a Show

not included preview.

It takes Mr. Brown about two hours to complete his transformation. He is proud of his role as Santa, which allows him to be “a beacon of light” for children, he said.

It takes Mr. Brown roughly two hours to morph into Santa, from putting on the body suit to donning the beard. Brown has learned that the three elements of his suit that draw the most attention are the three B’s: beard, belt, and boots.

In another book on Santa written by Mr. Brown, “The Making of Santa,” he charts a strategy for setting yourself up as a successful Santa, from the suit (Mr. Brown has eight) to behavior standards that won’t get you labeled as a Bad Santa. He adheres to the “Santa Claus Oath,” a code of ethics created by fellow Santa and author Phillip Wenz, who is also a charter member of the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame. Brown stays in character when wearing the red suit and knows his reindeer well (they each have a distinctive personality). He is also vigilant about having his background check and insurance. While portraying Santa, he is jovial, as well as flexible and adaptable to the needs of children, adults, and pets.

“I knew from the beginning that it was the right thing to do,” said Mr. Brown, recalling one Christmas when a grandmother had paid in installments for him to surprise her grandchildren. After handing out his “nice certificates” (no one is ever on his naughty list), Mr. Brown handed the grateful grandmother a special gift: the hiring fee for his visit, along with some extra cash. He expressed his thanks for the privilege of visiting her family and spreading Christmas cheer.

“Remember to love what you do, care about others, and keep the magic of the season alive in your heart,” emphasized Mr. Brown. “Allow each of these to drive your work as Santa.” He truly loves embracing the role. “I’m basically a big kid,” he beamed. “It’s an adrenaline rush for sure,” he said of when he gets to ride in the bucket seat of a fire engine. Historically, firefighters were designated as town Santas, with fire stations as the Christmas village.

Having retired from the military, Brown works by day for the government. Usually by October, he’s already filling up his calendar with his Santa Claus gigs. With his body suit to add heft, his black boots shined, and beard professionally coiffed, he’s ready for the season. His twinkling blue eyes say it all. •

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“It has to be about more than the career—it has to be about a sense of service to the world.”

Jane Ferguson, journalist

Jane Ferguson took up an interest in journalism after witnessing 9/11.

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Writer, Storyteller, Listener War correspondent Jane Ferguson reflects on growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and sharing stories of those living in conflict zones

By Hazel Atkins

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or award-winning war correspondent Jane Ferguson, journalism is storytelling.

She spent 15 years on the road pushing the envelope of war correspondence and the boundaries of risk in order to tell the stories of people living in conflict areas. She gives voice to people, humanizes them, listens to them, and refuses to allow them to become statistics. She has risked her life in places such as Somalia, South Sudan, and Afghanistan. She was one of eight journalists to stay in Kabul until the very last British Airways flight left, when the airport was taken over by the Taliban in 2021.

Driven in her early career by ambition, she hoped to get snapped up by one of the major networks.

But Ms. Ferguson learned that this wasn’t the most important goal. Along the way, she has discovered her own authentic voice. “I hope that I have pushed the boundaries of creativity, empathy, and hopefully courage—taking risks to tell humanitarian stories,” she said.

Silence and Storytelling Ms. Ferguson grew up in Northern Ireland during a time of conflict, in the era known euphemistically as the Troubles. She frequently watched helicopters flying overhead, her family’s car was regularly stopped at security checkpoints, and the police station across the road from her school was bombed.

The violence, anger, grief, and fear were shrouded in a special kind of silence, partly the result of her deeply reserved Ulster Protestant family culture but also, more broadly, the result of how sectarian societies organize themselves, she said. “Silence is how deeply divided societies manage to function.

Even though there are these explosions of violence, people simply decide not to talk about certain topics,” she explained.

As a child, Ms. Ferguson was often deeply frustrated by the fact that information and opinions were being carefully measured around her, and adults told her that she was not allowed to hear conversations. She developed a burning curiosity, refusing to stop asking questions, and also a keen skill of observation. In an effort to learn, she turned to books and the media, and she became fascinated and inspired by the stories of journalists writing from conflict areas. By the time 9/11 happened when she was 17, Ms. Ferguson knew that she wanted to be a journalist. She felt particularly drawn to the Middle East. “Language is such an important part of my life,” she said. “As a kid, I could see people using incredibly stark terms like ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ and yet none of it made any sense. I saw people who were clearly good, committing terrible acts.”

As she pursued her journalism career, she learned that each person has a story to tell, and through those stories, they become three-dimensional to viewers. Ms. Ferguson discovered that the best way to break the silence of war was to listen. “You discover on the road that everybody has something important that they want to tell you. Most people are incredibly grateful that they get a chance, that they’ve even been asked,” she said.

Ms. Ferguson hopes that audiences can connect to the subjects through her reporting. “Ultimately, I’m trying to get people who are hearing the story to connect with the people in it,” she explained. Her joy is crafting stories that get nine or ten minutes of air time—a long time in television. She has done the type of journalism from the front lines of conflict zones that is 70 seconds in length, but “that’s not really storytelling. That’s like a machine gun of shouting,” she said. During a time when everyone can get information from social media, good story-

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“You discover on the road that everybody has something important that they want to tell you. Most people are incredibly grateful that they get a chance, that they’ve even been asked.”

Ms. Ferguson reports in the United Arab Emirates.

Jane Ferguson

telling can never be replaced. “Storytelling to me is a craft, and that’s what I love: coming away from these unbelievable interviews with people where I feel like I’ve got something really important and special and I get to share it.”

Showing Respect Ms. Ferguson has faced the existential crisis that many journalists working in conflict zones have: Is it respectful to document and film people experiencing the worst days of their lives? “It’s a very personal struggle for journalists,” she said. “On the one hand, I absolutely believe in what we do, that it helps. Journalists being there helps make sure that there’s some degree of accountability for actions.

On the other hand, you don’t always feel like you’re helping.” Her response is to do her best to tell stories well and to offer her work as service. “It has to be about more than the career—it has to be about a sense of service to the world.”

Journalists can often be under tremendous pressure to meet deadlines. Ms. Ferguson knows that it is easy to feel impatient when interviewing someone. “Sometimes people feel like they’re being mined for some sort of specific quote or opinion, but you can’t approach it that way,” she warned. “A lot of people want to tell their story, but they don’t want to answer every invasive question.” She tries to sit and talk with people at length, to listen carefully to what they want to say. “If you sit down and ask someone about what’s going on, or how they are feeling, or what happened to them today after an explosion, people will tell you what matters most to them.” Ms. Ferguson has learned not to make assumptions about what people are going to say because she is so often surprised by their responses.

She also feels privileged to be able to spend time

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with women in very repressive societies and hear their stories. “The gray areas are where it’s very important to hear from them: Well, this is restrictive, this makes it hard for me, my dad doesn’t like me doing this, or the Taliban won’t allow this; but here’s what we’re doing in place of it. Here’s how we’re trying to manage.” Ultimately, it matters that they are seen as fully realized human beings: “It’s the best I can do.”

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Her Own Story

After 15 years on the road, Ms. Ferguson has turned her storytelling on herself by penning her memoir, “No Ordinary Assignment.” Just as she has tried in her career to portray people as complex and real, she has written a book about her life because “I want people to understand me.” The book is a brutally honest account of an unhappy child, an adolescent dogged by fears of not belonging, an ambitious and frustrated young journalist trying to sell herself to networks, and a woman learning how to listen.

“I wrote this book to inspire and comfort anyone who is trying to have an authentic life and authentic career but is at times plagued by insecurity,” she said.

She wanted to write the memoir now because she felt that her wild journey on the road had come to an end. She recently married and settled in New York. “Nothing in my story has quite gone the way it was supposed to,” she said, “and I think that ultimately I have found what I was really looking for anyway.” While she isn’t sure what is next for her, she is optimistic about the future of journalism and the future of justice in the world: “It is an irony of what we do: We highlight abuses of power, we highlight suffering because we want people to have better lives, and we believe they deserve them.” •

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SUPPLY LIST

• Flak jacket + helmet • Gas mask (if protests are likely) • Trauma kit (tourniquet, bandages, etc.)

• Good boots • Hard drives • External battery packs • Plug converter • Granola bars • Pens and notebooks • Paper maps of country or territory • Endless supply of contact lenses • Dry shampoo • Travel towel • One good book

ABOVE Ms. Ferguson

• Makeup + hairbrush

reports from atop an African Union tank.

• Sunscreen • Sunglasses (cheap ones, because they may break)

LEFT Ms. Ferguson

interviews new recruits to local militia forces in the Panjshir Valley of northern Afghanistan, June 2021. Many of them are young farmers’ sons and carry old hunting rifles.

• Antibiotics, painkillers, Imodium (for upset stomach relief), rehydration salts • Lots of clean socks and undies

BELOW LEFT Ms. Ferguson

departs Kabul, 2019.

BELOW Ms. Ferguson goes live on camera during the 2014 Gaza conflict.

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From

Dimples to Diplomat Child star Shirley Temple’s catch phrase ‘Oh my goodness!’ exemplified her very nature

By Stephen Oles

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he was the adorable little girl whose movies brought Americans much-needed joy and hope during the Great Depression. She was Hollywood’s top box office star four years in a row, a record unequaled before or since. By 1935, Shirley was the second most popular girl’s name in the country, and dolls bearing her likeness outsold all others.

Even the president was a fan. “As long as our country has Shirley Temple,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt stated, “we will be all right.” But Shirley’s acting career was just the beginning of her trailblazing, patriotic accomplishments.

So many juvenile movie careers have ended tragically. Wanting to act grown-up like the adults they work with, child actors fall prey to bad influences. When youthful cuteness fades and roles dry up, too many hit the skids: alcohol, drugs, arrests, bankruptcy. Shirley Temple was a happy exception.

The Most Famous Child in the World

ABOVE RIGHT Lobby

card for the 1934 film “Bright Eyes,” starring Shirley Temple.

RIGHT A promotional photo of Temple for the 1934 film “Bright Eyes.”

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She was born in Santa Monica, California, in 1928.

Her father worked at a bank. Her movie-loving mother, Gertrude, enrolled her in dancing school at age 2. That’s where she was spotted by scouts for a low-budget studio that made short films with toddlers dressed up like adults. The movies were cheesy, but Shirley’s bright personality and precocious song-and-dance skills won her a small part in a mainstream, Fox Film musical.

In the early 1930s, a growing public outcry over immorality in the movies led to the imposition of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934.

The new rules sent Hollywood scrambling to find wholesome stories and stars. Five-year-old Shirley

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fit the bill. Twentieth Century-Fox immediately signed the tyke. Unsure what to do with her, they lent her out to Paramount. She was such a sensation in her two films there, Fox grabbed the kid back and crafted a series of enormously successful, family-friendly vehicles for her, beginning with “Bright Eyes.” Almost overnight, she became the most famous child in the country, and then in the world.

Decades later, Shirley said that from age 3, “I worked for the rest of my childhood. … I thought every child worked.” Gertrude responded to the charge that Fox was exploiting her daughter by telling Time Magazine: “Her work entails no effort. She plays at acting as other small girls play with dolls.” That quote may remind us why stage

A portrait of Shirley Temple Black in 1948.

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ABOVE Temple leaves

the White House after meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 24, 1938. Library of Congress.

ABOVE RIGHT Temple

with her 3-monthold daughter, Linda Susan, in 1948.

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mothers have a bad reputation, but Gertrude was actually one of the good ones. Every night, she set the girl’s blond hair in exactly 56 sausage curls. She tirelessly protected Shirley from the pitfalls of show business and tried, with limited success, to keep her from knowing how famous she was. “I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was 6,” Shirley would remember. “Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.”

Less amusing was 12-year-old Shirley’s encounter with Arthur Freed, the producer of great musicals like “Singin’ in the Rain.” As she related to Larry King in a 1988 interview, Freed exposed himself.

“I had never seen anyone naked before,” Shirley recalled. “It struck me so funny, I laughed at him.”

Freed threw her out of his office. When she told her mother, Gertrude said Louis B. Mayer, the head of the studio, had made a play for her in his office!

They left MGM and never went back.

In most of her films Shirley plays the same basic character. Like Dorothy in L. Frank Baum’s “Oz” books, she embodies the classic American virtues of optimism, courage, fair-mindedness, and self-reliance. Her cheerful songs and antics melt the hardest hearts, comfort the downtrodden, and bring people together until she caps the happy ending with her signature phrase: “Oh my goodness!” In her movies, although Shirley gives proper respect to worthy adults, she sees right through hypocrisy and meanness. Unimpressed by pretensions and prestige, she stands up for what’s right and for herself.

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Shirley’s co-stars included Cesar Romero, Gary Cooper, and Ronald Reagan, but her favorite was Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Their tap dances together are iconic. She told Larry King, “We were the first interracial dancing couple ever.” She later said, “Bill Robinson treated me as an equal. … He didn’t talk down to me. [He] was the best of all.” His family and hers would remain close, lifelong friends.

Darryl Zanuck, head of production at Fox, met the demand for Temple movies by mass-producing them. She appeared in 12 films in 1934 alone. By the age of 10, she had starred in 14 more, but by the end of the decade moviegoers began to tire of seeing the same cute Shirley in the same predictable stories.

A theater owner in Texas complained: “Business falling off with every Temple picture. Fox better give Shirley something different or she will be a has-been within a year.”

Gertrude agreed. She begged Zanuck to give her daughter more varied roles in more realistic stories, to help her grow as an actress. He replied, “The less she changes, the longer she lasts.” But even Zanuck couldn’t stop the girl from growing up.

When MGM asked to borrow Shirley for the studio’s new “Wizard of Oz” musical, Zanuck refused.

The role went instead to a contract player named Judy Garland. When “Oz” and Garland were a hit, Zanuck decided to release his own Technicolor epic with Temple.

“The Blue Bird” (1940) was an elaborate, very expensive fantasy. Gertrude lobbied Zanuck to

make her daughter’s character “more spoiled and naughty.” The gambit failed. The reviews were bad, fans disliked the new imperfect Shirley, and the film was a flop. Teenage Shirley appeared in a few more films, but the public lost interest and Fox dropped her contract.

Her Second Act F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that American lives have no second acts. Shirley Temple proved him wrong. In 1950, she met businessman Charles Black, who’d never seen her movies and didn’t know who she was. It was love at first sight. Their happy marriage lasted 55 years until Black’s death in 2005. Shirley had dabbled in politics as a Republican fundraiser. In 1967, with her husband’s enthusiastic support, she ran to become California’s first congresswoman. “It wouldn’t hurt,” she told the press, “to have a woman’s viewpoint expressed in that delegation of 38 men.”

She lost that election, but Shirley Temple Black’s career in public service was just beginning. In 1969, President Nixon appointed her to the United States delegation at the United Nations. Her advocacy there for humanitarian causes so impressed President Ford that he made her our ambassador to Ghana. In 1976, she became the White House’s

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first female Chief of Protocol, and in 1989, President George H.W. Bush chose her for the prestigious position of ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Some felt that a movie star had no business in foreign affairs, but how many diplomats begin their careers already known and loved all over the world? One skeptic was Henry Kissinger, but he later praised her as “very intelligent, very tough-minded, very disciplined.”

What may be most remarkable about Shirley isn’t her success on the screen or in politics. It’s how closely the adult resembled the characters she played as a child. Never bitter or resentful, she had nothing but love and gratitude for her parents and the movie career that gave her the name and the ability to help others. In 1972, she went public with her breast cancer diagnosis—the first celebrity to do so—and encouraged women to self-examine and see their doctors regularly.

Before she passed away in 2014, Shirley reflected: “I’ve led three lives: the acting part, wife and mother—which is a career—and international relations. I’m proud of my career, the first one, and I’m proud of the other two, too.”

From Hollywood to Ghana to the White House, Shirley Temple broke the mold of the doomed ex-child star. Hers was truly a life well lived. •

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President Richard Nixon meets with U.S. Ambassador to Ghana Shirley Temple Black on Feb. 28, 1974.

White House Photo Office Collection.

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The Man Who Gave Santa a Makeover and a Home lllustrator Thomas Nast created a fitting image for the embodiment of Christmas giving

By Dean George

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he legend of Santa Claus is centuries old, but the jolly guy’s use of the North Pole as home base for making toys, checking his list of good girls and boys, and prepping for his Christmas Eve rounds has only been common knowledge for just over 150 years.

The North Pole was first identified as Santa’s home by Thomas Nast. Nast was a 19th-century German-born caricaturist who did editorial cartoons depicting the contemporary politics of his time. Commonly referred to as the Father of the American Cartoon, his background seems antithetical to someone doing detailed illustrations of Santa Claus, elves, and reindeer. Yet how we see Santa Claus and the North Pole today is a direct influence of Thomas Nast’s Christmas illustrations.

Why the North Pole?

In 1866, the North Pole was a realm of the imagination. No one had yet seen the North Pole, and the faraway land of ice and snow had attained an almost mythical status. During the 1840s and 1850s, there were several highly publicized Arctic expeditions that stirred the public’s imagination and curiosity about the unknown land up north.

Secondly, snow was already a universal symbol of Christmas, so what better place for Santa to experience Christmas throughout the year than someplace where it snows year round?

Clement Moore had already established that reindeer were Santa’s chosen mode of transportation in his classic poem “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and reindeer are well acclimated to the frosty environment found at the North Pole.

Also, the North Pole was geographically isolated, politically neutral, and at the top of the world.

For all these reasons, Nast began promoting

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A photograph of Thomas Nast drawing two caricatures, circa 1888. Gift of Thomas Nast Jr., Mabel Nast Crawford, and Cyril Nast; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Illustration of “Christmas Station,” with a note on the chimney reading “Santa Claus Stop Here Please,” by Thomas Nast, 1889. Library of Congress.

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This page is n in the p Nast’s illustrations, especially his Christmas illustrations, quickly captured the public’s interest and appealed to the magazine’s readers.

ABOVE “Merry Old Santa Claus” by Thomas Nast, 1863.

ABOVE RIGHT The poem “Santa Claus and his Works,” written by George P. Webster, circa 1869, was inspired by Nast’s 20-vignette centerfold in the Dec. 29, 1866, edition of Harper’s Weekly. Webster’s “Santa Claus and his Works” included a color collection of Nast’s drawings in a children’s book.

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the North Pole as the home of Santa Claus and his toy workshop in the December 29, 1866, issue of Harper’s Weekly.

Three years after Harper’s Weekly published “Santa Claus and his Works,” a poem by the same name written by George P. Webster included a color collection of Nast’s drawings in a children’s book.

The poem read that Santa’s home “was near the North Pole, in the ice and snow,” further cementing the top of the world as Santa’s year-long domicile.

How Thomas Nast Became Santa’s Helper Nast was born in a military barracks in Bavaria, Germany, on September 27, 1840. His father Joseph Thomas Nast was a musician in a regimental band who, after becoming disenchanted with the Bavarian government, sent his wife Appolonia and two children to New York in 1846 before joining them after his enlistment ended four years later.

Young Nast struggled with schooling but was passionate about drawing. At age 14, he studied under German émigré Theodore Kaufmann before enrolling in the National Academy of Design. By age 15, he worked as a draftsman for Frank Leslie’s

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Illustrated Newspaper, a literary and news magazine founded in 1855. In 1862, he joined the staff of Harper’s Weekly, a political magazine with numerous illustrations covering foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays, and humor. Numerous periodicals of that period used illustrators to sketch current events since photography was neither a quick nor easy process at the time.

During the Civil War, Nast was known for allegorical and emblematic depictions of the Civil War. He began drawing Christmas illustrations for Harper’s Weekly his first year on the staff, including an instant sensation titled “Christmas Eve 1862.” The drawing depicted two wreaths. The wreath on the left framed the image of a soldier’s wife gazing at the moon praying for her husband, and inside the second wreath on the right, her husband is in front of a campfire staring longingly at photographs of his family while on picket duty in the Union Army.

Nast’s illustrations, especially his Christmas illustrations, quickly captured the public’s interest and appealed to the magazine’s readers. From 1863 to 1886, Nast submitted 33 Christmas-themed

illustrations to the magazine, but it was in a double page, 20-vignette collage appearing as a centerfold in the December 29, 1866, issue entitled “Santa Claus and his Works” that the North Pole was first introduced as Santa’s headquarters.

The collage included vignettes that offered details about Santa’s life still in vogue today, including Santa in his workshop, Santa hanging stockings, and Santa perusing a book listing the names of good boys and girls. One vignette depicted Santa looking through a magic telescope “on the lookout for good children.”

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A Right Jolly Old Elf

Before Nast’s artistic interpretation, Santa was seen as a stern figure who judged children. He was tall, thin, and a rigid disciplinarian. By the mid-1800s, Americans idealized a pleasant kind of domestic life, big on sentimentality and tenderness.

Borrowing partly from the musings of W. Clement Moore and others, Nast illustrated Santa as more portly with a ruddy nose and snow white

beard. Nast’s artwork was done as black and white wood engravings, so the colored illustrations portraying Santa in a red suit may have first appeared in the “Santa Claus and his Works” children’s book. Today, Santa is usually pictured in a red suit trimmed in white fur at the collar and cuffs, with a black belt and boots and a soft red cap also trimmed in white fur. He is cheerful, grandfatherly, and sometimes is bespectacled and smokes a pipe.

Nast’s depictions of Santa have proven timeless.

When Coca-Cola began using Santa Claus in its promotional ads in the 1930s, the only significant difference from Nast’s illustrations was removing Santa’s pipe. The Santa likeness in the Coke ads was so similar to that of Nast’s created half a century earlier that many today mistakenly believe that the soft drink manufacturer is responsible for what Santa looks like.

Before Nast’s Christmas illustrations, Santa Claus was more of a symbol of holiday goodwill.

Nast’s talent and imagination helped give Santa a personality and a home at the top of the world. •

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His first year at Harper’s Weekly, Nast began drawing Christmas-inspired illustrations— including “Christmas Eve” of 1862, which became an instant sensation. Inside the wreathed frames, a wife gazes at the moon praying for her husband, while her husband, on picket duty in the Union Army, stares longingly at photographs of his family. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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The Revolutionary War Benefactor

Generosity for the cause of freedom had no end for Brig. Gen. Thomas Nelson Jr.

By Sally Humphries

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ABOVE Print of Thomas Nelson Jr. by Max Rosenthal after a painting by Rembrandt Peale, 1850–1890. The New York Public Library.

LEFT French fleet (left), commanded by Vice Admiral the Comte de Grasse, engaging the British fleet under Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. “Battle of the Virginia Capes, 5 September 1781” by V. Zveg, 1972. Hampton Roads Naval Museum, Norfolk, Va.

T

homas Nelson Jr. was not only born in Yorktown, Virginia, he owned much of it. He never lacked for money, prestige, or an idyllic life, but in 1774 his attention shifted to liberty and freedom. When the British closed the Port of Boston, Nelson sent supplies from his own pocket to the patriots there.

When the British Navy threatened to bombard Yorktown, his reaction was bold and decisive. “I am

a merchant of Yorktown, but I am a Virginian first.

Let my trade perish,” he thundered. The only thing that kept him from enlisting in the Continental Army was periodic bouts of asthma. He served without pay in the Virginia legislature and as lieutenant of York County. He became a brigadier general in charge of Virginia’s militia when the British invasion threatened.

In 1778, Nelson raised a company of Virginia

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cavalry to fight in Pennsylvania. He was its banker as well as its commander. Most of the funds for food, uniforms, and ammunition came out of his own pocket. In addition, he paid the debts for two other regiments, lent money to needy soldiers and officers, gave his best horses to the army and fed hungry soldiers from his own granary. He even neglected his tobacco crops to send his indentured workers and tenants to harvest the crops of small farmers who were serving in the militia and were unable to hire help. His generosity was without end.

Giving All He Had When the French fleet needed money to operate in American waters in 1780, Nelson raised $2 million almost overnight by offering his own properties as guarantees for the loans. He did it because he felt he had to. The state of Virginia had destroyed its credit by issuing too much paper money and had no money to give. Unfortunately, when Nelson’s loans came due, he had to forfeit them and take the loss. The government never reimbursed him. And he never pressed the point.

In the final battle at Yorktown, the English fleet that was supposed to bring more troops was sent limping back to New York, outmaneuvered and outgunned by the French fleet that Nelson had helped finance. Nelson was in command of the Virginia militia, as well as serving as governor of the A print of Nelson’s house in Yorktown, Va., circa 1850–1890.

The New York Public Library.

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state. He was in the front lines where 70 cannons were making things hot for the besieged British in Yorktown.

Nelson saw that his own brick mansion was untouched by the heavy bombardment even though it was known that the British were headquartered there.

In 1778, Nelson raised a company of Virginia cavalry to fight in Pennsylvania.

“Why do you spare my house?” he demanded of a gunner.

“Out of respect to you, Sir,” the soldier replied.

“Give me the cannon!” Nelson ordered. At his insistence, the gun was directly fired upon his own stately dwelling, killing several British officers inside.

For eight days the fighting raged. To make matters worse, the British ran out of fodder for their horses and were forced to kill them. Then an epidemic of smallpox broke out in the cramped quarters of the small town and took many lives. By October, the British were out of options and surrendered their arms as their fifes played “The World Turned Upside Down.” It would take two more years before a treaty

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ABOVE A print titled “The Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown A.D. 1781” by the Illman Brothers after Charles Édouard Armand-Dumaresq, circa 1870.

of peace was finally signed, but England would risk no more armies. A new nation was born.

Before the war, Nelson had been one of the richest men in Virginia, but when it ended, he was living on the edge of poverty and in poor health. He retired to his son’s home in Hanover County with his wife.

When asked if he had any regrets or bitterness, Nelson said, “I would do it all over again.” He died at age 50 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Yorktown’s Grace Chapel to prevent his creditors from holding his body as collateral.

Nelson personified the closing words of the Declaration of Independence: “and for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” •

LEFT A plan of the entrance of Chesapeake Bay with James and York rivers showing the positions of the British Army at Gloucester and York, as well as the American and French forces, published in 1781.

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Authors

Resisting the Transgender ʻAssembly Lineʼ Dr. Miriam Grossman discusses how to protect children from radical gender ideology

By Jeff Minick

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any parents are concerned, and rightly so, about the sharp rise in children and teenagers swept up in the gender dysphoria trend. In this interview, Dr. Miriam Grossman discusses ways of educating even young children to resist gender ideology and the steps that parents can take to protect their children, particularly from influencers on social media and in the schools. Dr. Grossman is a child and adolescent psychiatrist whose most recent book is “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness.”

Jan Jekielek: You’re a child psychiatrist standing up to gender ideology.

Please tell me how you ended up here.

Dr. Miriam Grossman: It started around 15 years ago. I was studying sex education and came across all this material about gender and gender identity, that the binary of male and female is false, and that male-female binary is oppressive and restrictive. As a child psychiatrist, I was astonished by this bizarre idea of telling children that they might be neither male or female, that they might be both or something in between, and that their feelings are more important than their own bodies. Male and female are at the core of our humanity.

Now we’re in a calamity with tens of thousands of children proclaiming an identity other than being male or female, demanding hormones, demanding their puberties be stopped, and asking for mastectomies and genital surgeries. Finally, people are taking notice, but it’s important for parents to understand how long this has been around and where the

ideas came from. I spell all of that out in the book.

Mr. Jekielek: In the book, you discuss three kinds of gender dysphoria.

There are two traditional types. The third one is this new, rapid-onset gender dysphoria.

Dr. Grossman: Gender dysphoria is an intense feeling of discomfort with your sex and with your body, and with the expectations placed on you by society, the culture, and the nature of being a boy or a girl. There are extremely rare individuals who have gender dysphoria, which can be very debilitating. In psychiatry, we’ve known about this for about a hundred years.

Essentially, people with gender dysphoria, and I’m going to oversimplify here, fall into two categories. The first category were mostly boys that were preschoolers or pre-puberty. The poster child for childhood onset gender dysphoria is Jazz Jennings. He went to his parents when he was two or three years old, already insisting that he was a girl, or that he had to become a girl, because he felt so uncomfortable with his body. That is classic childhood onset gender dysphoria.

We know from the studies done on these children, again mostly boys, over the decades that these cases have been rare. So rare in fact, that 20 years ago the entire world had only three clinics that helped children with gender dysphoria: Toronto, London, and Amsterdam. They didn’t see a lot of these cases, maybe 18 to 20 children a year.

We know that with the vast majority of these kids, we can adopt a watchful waiting approach. Watchful waiting means giving them support with their feelings, family support, and perhaps allowing certain behaviors or ways of dressing. But you don’t socially transition them the way we’re doing now. Between 60 and 90 percent of these kids will outgrow their gender dysphoria. A lot of them become gay and lesbian, but they’re comfortable with their bodies.

The other group with gender dysphoria are middle-aged heterosexual men who enjoy cross-dressing and wearing women’s clothing. Typically, after being married and having children, they decide they want to go through the remainder of their lives presenting as women. They sometimes go through medical transitioning to appear more like women. So two unique groups with different demographics.

We now have this third group we’ve never seen before, an explosion of gender dysphoria in teenage girls. It’s a majority of girls, and affects a lot of boys as well. But what’s new here is the demographic. They’re teenagers, and most of them never had any issue with being a girl in the past. In fact, some might have been very girly girls.

What we know about this group is that they have a lot of previous psychiatric conditions. A lot of them are on the autism spectrum. They have anxiety, depression, ADHD [Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder], family issues, a history of trauma, and all sorts of things. We also know that before they come out as being transgender, they’ve spent an inordinate amount of time online exposed to these ideas through social media and influencers.

YouTube has hundreds if not thousands of kids who document their transitioning. They will say, “I’ve been on testosterone now for two weeks.

My voice is starting to go.” Many kids are bingeing on these videos and getting drawn into them.

What these kids really need is psychotherapy. They need to look at their lives deeply with somebody who has experience, compassion, and under-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DR. MIRIAM GROSSMAN Specializes in child and adolescent psychiatry and has done extensive research on sexuality education since the 2000s.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ʻLOST IN TRANS NATION: A Child

Psychiatristʼs Guide Out of the Madnessʼ

Dr. Grossman provides a roadmap for parents dealing with today’s fraught landscape of gender ideology, and offers advice for those with children who have expressed interest in “transitioning.”

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standing. They need someone who will help them explore where this new identity came from.

Yet we’re told certain things by the crusaders, the ideologues. I don’t use that word crusader flippantly. This movement seeks to impose a certain way of thinking on us and especially on our children. They propose giving girls testosterone at levels they would never experience, unless they had some sort of an endocrine tumor, and giving boys harmful levels of estrogen. There’s a whole laundry list of medical issues.

Some of these kids then go on to have healthy organs removed. They end up disfigured and even sterilized. This is all couched in the language of compassion and packaged within civil rights, “We have to be kind, we have to be inclusive.” Of course, we have to be kind and inclusive. No one is saying we shouldn’t be.

What people like me are arguing is that we should honor every person’s mosaic of male and female without harming their body. We should not be touching these kids’ bodies with experimental medical interventions.

Mr. Jekielek: What is the current state of affairs? You said there is this explosion.

Dr. Grossman: A 5,000 percent increase.

Mr. Jekielek: And there’s a multi-billion dollar industry around it. But in the last year or two, hasn’t there also been a significant movement in the other direction, doing the things that you’re recommending?

Dr. Grossman: At this time, in this country, many are still gung-ho with the narrative of gender dysphoria. Parents are told that puberty blockers are safe and that this is the best way of treating these kids—to affirm them, give them blockers that will prevent their natural puberty, and then shortly thereafter begin a synthetic puberty of the opposite sex.

In my book I call it an assembly line because once kids are put on this path, almost all of them on blockers go further down the path to cross-sex hormones. They’re not just buying time, and they’re not changing their minds. For the ones that change their minds, it happens later.

As most of your viewers know, sex is established at conception. There’s no assigning anything at birth. The egg unites with a sperm. In 99.98 percent of cases, you have either a boy or a girl at conception. That condition is permanent. This is biological reality. When you take that 10-year-old boy and you comply with his request to be considered a girl, and you are following the directions of all the medical organizations, let’s just call it what it is—you are enforcing a falsehood. He is not a girl and can never be a girl.

Is there some opposition to these transitions? Clearly. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics has now announced they are going to review their policy they came out with in 2018.

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“I call it an assembly line because once kids are put on this path, almost all of them on blockers go further down the path to cross-sex hormones.”

Dr. Miriam Grossman, psychiatrist

Mr. Jekielek: You dedicate a chapter in “Lost in Trans Nation” to euphemisms. For example, the term top surgery. With top surgery, you don’t get the sense of how life-altering it is. Please tell us more about this use of language that’s euphemistic, or in some cases just deceptive.

Dr. Grossman: We could be here all day talking about the Orwellian terms used in gender ideology, like “affirming.” If you affirm someone’s new identity, it means you have to deny their biology. But affirming sounds wonderful. What kind of person would not affirm a child?

And that term top surgery is particularly offensive as it leads young girls

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to believe that it’s not a big deal. They are led to believe that breasts are unnecessary sex objects. You’re not a girl, and you’re not a woman, so you don’t need these objects on your chest.

This is happening in girls as young as age 12. In the book I talk about the surgeons who openly say, “I have no lower age requirement in my office.”

These surgeons presumably are getting informed consent from the girls and from their guardian who also has to sign if they’re underage. One question I’m asking in the book is, “What kind of informed consent could this possibly be?” To get a valid informed consent, the person has to understand exactly what is going to happen in this procedure, including the long-term consequences.

In order to be truly informed, girls need to be educated about what these organs actually do. Nursing, for instance, is an incredible experience, both for the mother and the infant. There is bonding going on. There are pheromones being shared. Oxytocin, the trust hormone and the bonding hormone, is being released in the mother and the child. It’s wonderfully complex and awesome. I call it an ecosystem.

And so many parents contact me who are desperate. Just a few days ago, I got an emergency email from a mom, and she was begging me, “Here’s the phone number of the surgeon. Please call him. I’ll pay you whatever you want. I know you can do this. Dr. Grossman, please convince him not to operate on my daughter.” Of course, there was nothing I could do. I can’t pick up a phone and call a surgeon and tell him not to operate.

What I can do is talk about what’s going on. I can warn parents about this. My book is written for everyday moms and dads to understand the landscape. Where did this come from? What can I do now to inoculate my kids against this ideology?

“Hundreds of parents I’ve talked to were blindsided. They never imagined such an announcement from their child.”

Dr. Miriam Grossman

not included preview.

Dr. Grossman believes that no child is born in the wrong body. She urges parents to trust their instincts and guard against institutions that may advise medical intervention.

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Why I Love America

Gratitude From 85 Countries An English teacher gets a glimpse of America through the eyes of her students

By Patty Aponte

I

am a teacher, and I’ve taught many types of students, but my most recent job, and perhaps the one I loved most, was as an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) teacher for adult students. I specifically worked with advanced-level English learners, meaning that most of them were professionals in their own countries and were extremely intelligent people.

I learned just as much from them as they did from me. Most importantly, I think I learned to appreciate my own country more by listening to and watching them.

One lesson I did involved watching the video of the song “America” from “West Side Story.” I asked the class, “Which group do you agree with?” As a whole, the entire class agreed that, although they missed family members and some of their traditions, it was much better to live in America. They intuitively understood that there was no guarantee of happiness in moving and living here, but the main obstacles to their happiness had been removed.

When then asked to give three reasons for why they preferred America, one student’s response was very simple. He said, “I stay there, I die. I come here, I live.” When the other students insisted that he still needed two more reasons, I said, “No. No, he doesn’t.”

One young lady had watched two of her brothers get shot and killed right in front of her. They were killed by American soldiers, but she holds no ill will toward them. She said that there was no way for them to know who was a rebel and who wasn’t. Instead, she is forever grateful that they saved her, her husband, and her daughter, and that they are now living safely in this country. To watch her come into class every day, one would think she hadn’t a care in the world, but she was just so happy to be able to wear jeans every day.

Another lesson had the students making posters and giving presentations about their countries. They loved learning from each other and learning about other countries, but they all really wanted to know about where their teacher came from.

They assumed when they first started school that everyone from the United States who spoke English would all sound the same, but they soon learned that people from New York sounded very different from people from the South. And that even within each state, there were regionalisms. They loved learning from a teacher who was born here. They wanted to assimilate quickly, not only to get better jobs, but because they truly wanted to be a part of this country.

In our school, we had students from over 85 different countries around the world. It

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always amazed me that some of the things the students would write in their assignments were all the same regardless of where they came from.

One student’s parents were killed in front of him, and he suffered psychological damage because of it. He came to this country with his brother. He had difficulty with his speaking skills, but he was able to express himself through his writing. When asked, “Is there anything that you did not like about your country?” he responded, “High crime rate, the population aren’t as nice as they pretend, the government, the roads, people meddle in your business, usually with ill intentions, the law enforcement, crime impunities, etc.”

When asked, “How is it different in this country than in your country of origin?” he responded, “The weather for starters, the traffic is great, I feel free, I don’t feel watched, I can walk at night, I don’t feel a malignant presence on my life, and finally, I feel like I have a future to look forward to.”

Entitlement sounds like such a bad word, but sometimes it means that we just get so used to all the blessings that we have, we start complaining about the simplest things. I remember complaining when my dryer broke, and I had to hang my clothes on the line.

That’s embarrassing to admit when compared to some of the things that people have to deal with in other countries.

I read somewhere that if you want your kids to appreciate more, give them less. I think that’s true for all Americans. We just forget to compare what it would be like if we lived elsewhere. Whenever my students are making mistakes in their work, I remind them to “get back to basics.” I think that is a good idea for all Americans.

It’s time to get back to basics and remember that the things that we take for granted, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are the same things that others would be so grateful to have—to the point of risking their lives to get them. • Why do you love America? What makes it worth celebrating? What moves you about the people and places that make up our country? Tell us in a personal essay of about 600 to 800 words. We welcome you to send your submission to: Editor@AmericanEssenceMag.com

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“Falun Gong is, in my judgement, the single greatest spiritual movement in Asia today.

There’s nothing that begins to compare with it in courage and importance.”

—Mark Palmer FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR

“What made Falun Gong stand out from other qigong exercises and meditation practices was a moral system—compassion, truthfulness, and forbearance— unmistakably Buddhist in origin.”

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—Arthur Waldron LAUDER PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

A LIFE-CHANGING BESTSELLER

Capturing the Hearts of Millions This book expounds upon the profound principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. It focuses on a long-forgotten term called “cultivation,” and the importance of moral character on one’s path to spiritual perfection. The book explains the role of karma as the root cause of illness and tribulations, along with many other mysteries of life and the universe.

Zhuan Falun, the main text of the spiritual practice Falun Dafa, was a national bestseller in China in the 1990s, and has since been translated into over 40 languages. Find out why it has captured the hearts and minds of tens of millions of people in over 100 countries worldwide!

Scan the QR code with your phone camera to open our website, or visit:

FaYuanBooks.com

LIFESTYLE THE BEST OF AMERICAN LIVING

★ Welcome to

Rancho San Julian

Elizabeth Poett marks life at her family’s historic California cattle ranch by the meals they share.

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Holiday Sparklers, Made in America Six expert-recommended American sparkling wines to ring in the New Year.

Medieval Marvel Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, boasts an impressive art collection.

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Elizabeth Poett works the corrals at her family’s historic cattle ranch, Rancho San Julian, on California’s Central Coast.

Gathering Around the Ranch Table

At her familyʼs historic Central California ranch, 7th-generation rancher Elizabeth Poett shares her life through a delicious lens: food

By Eric Lucas

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T

ucked in beneath the spreading arms of a hillside live oak tree, a dozen newborn Angus calves are enjoying nap time on a September morning at California’s Rancho San Julian.

“See that one heifer in there with them?”

Elizabeth Poett indicates an older cow in the shade of the oak. “She’s the designated babysitter. I just love seeing that, the way the herd takes care of its next generation. It’s the same thing, year after year.”

Generational traditions hold vast importance for Ms. Poett: She represents the seventh generation of a family that originally began San Julian in 1837, with a 48,000-acre Spanish land grant to her ancestor José de la Guerra. Leaving the ranch after high school to attend college in Ohio and work in New York and Los Angeles, she returned 15 years ago to help carry on the family’s longstanding business, assisting her father with the cattle operation and helping preserve the 14,000-acre ranch, which is about an hour west of Santa Barbara and remains dedicated to her dad’s original pasture-raised beef vision. She married a like-minded local ranching scion and is raising two boys in a historic ranch home.

Along with helping run the cattle business, she’s now the doyenne of an enterprise, “The Ranch Table,” devoted to sharing the styles and foods of traditional California cattle country celebrations, of which there are many—following branding, calving, gathers (cattle round-ups), fall cider pressing, and other ranch activities, along with universal holidays such as New Year’s and Easter. Ms. Poett has a Magnolia Network TV show, “Ranch to Table”; welcomes groups to the property for festive events at which they experience not only the ways of farm and ranch life, but the beauty and value of human gatherings; and has just released a lavishly illustrated, celebration-oriented cookbook, “The Ranch Table” (William Morrow).

“I’m a big believer in connecting people to the land, and everything that grows on it, and the importance of both those things,” Ms. Poett said.

Coming Back to the Ranch Her corn-silk hair cut mid-back length, and her den-

im-clad, sinewy frame borne of ranch life, Ms. Poett is outspoken in her reverence for tradition. She and her family pronounce the name of the ranch in the Spanish way: “sahn hul-y-ahn.” She grows heirloom tomatoes, chiles, melons, corn, and pumpkins in the garden behind the original ranch house. Nearby is an old apricot orchard, and a 6-foot barbecue pit and grill adjoin the picnic area for preparation of the Central Coast’s traditional oak-roasted Santa Maria tri-tip steak.

Tradition and history ride the breeze here, but Ms. Poett ventured far out into the modern world to catalyze her eventual return. She attended Kenyon College in Ohio (“I got a degree in communications, no ag studies there!”), studied in Spain for a while (“I fell in love with the culture and the food”), and then moved to Manhattan, spending several years in Greenwich Village in a tiny flat trying her hand at writing.

That wasn’t quite as familially exotic as it may seem: Her mother was the editor of The Village Voice in the mid-’70s and founded an independent weekly paper in Santa Barbara after moving west with Ms. Poett’s dad, Jim Poett, California’s first organic beef producer.

Relocating to Los Angeles after a few years in New York, Ms. Poett found herself heeding her dad’s requests to head north on weekends to help manage the cattle operation. “There I was in LA, and my friends would say on Thursday, ‘So, you going to see the Foo Fighters at Hollywood Bowl Saturday?’ I’d say, ‘Well, no, I’m heading back up to Santa Barbara for the fall branding,’ which would always be followed by a traditional barbecue. They’d give me a strange look and shrug.

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FAR ABOVE Elizabeth Poett with her husband and fellow rancher, Austin Campbell, and their two sons.

ABOVE “The Ranch Table” by Elizabeth Poett (William Morrow Cookbooks, 2023).

FAR LEFT Ms. Poett and Mr. Campbell share an al fresco meal.

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RIGHT

Each Christmas season, Ms. Poett hosts a holiday baking party at the ranch.

FAR RIGHT

On a cattle branding day, one of the most important events at the ranch, Ms. Poett helps her father in the corrals in the morning, then heads to the kitchen to assemble a feast for their hungry crew.

BELOW FAR RIGHT

Ms. Poett grew up on the family ranch and returned to it later in life.

“It wasn’t very long before I just moved back to San Julian. I was clearly making my way back there all along,” Ms. Poett recalled.

An Invitation to the Table Among Ms. Poett’s many jobs at the ranch has been selling the family’s beef at the Santa Barbara farmers market.

“Those are very sophisticated consumers,” Ms. Poett said. “‘Are you organic?’ they’d ask. I’d tell them it’s a much bigger question than that. We focus on what we’re proud of, what we can stand behind, such as careful grazing rotation to preserve the pastures.

“They’d say, ‘Can we come visit and see?’ I thought, ‘Why not?’”

That was the genesis of Ms. Poett’s various enterprises promoting the San Julian lifestyle. Her dinners take place beneath a massive grape arbor beside the original home ranch, the oldest section of which dates to 1806, before San Julian’s 1837 creation. Long, slightly sloping porches adjoin the exquisitely evocative, Dutch gable-roofed white adobe and clapboard house, one of the oldest in California. Sturdy oaks and sycamores lift their shoulders high above the house and yard.

Weathered gray picnic tables can seat up to 90 guests—a number that might have been likely at a gather a century ago, say, when ranch life was a communal affair in which neighbors, relatives, guests, and workers all pitched in for brandings, gathers, and such. (And still do today.) A spring-fed freshet burbles beside the arbor patio. Old quilts cover the mattresses on brass bedsteads in the house.

The quiet drive out front is lined with huge,

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shaggy eucalyptus trees that lead around a curve to the stables opposite the house. In the 19th century, this exact lane was the stage road between Santa Barbara and Lompoc.

But as pastorally glamorous as it may seem, Ms. Poett says there are stressful days when she and her husband, Austin Campbell, and their two boys return to their house as grumpy as any modern family. Her husband may have spent an afternoon corralling wayward steers; she may have devoted a difficult morning to nursing a calf born too early; the boys may have endured a testy day with math at school; and all four might have had to head out to a distant pasture for a couple hours to repair a fenceline on which an ancient oak unexpectedly dumped a limb the size of an elephant. And their rural cell service might be balky, so no text chats with friends and neighbors.

“Unlike most people, we can’t just order pizza delivery—no Grubhub or Doordash out here. So I’ll cook up a favorite dinner—maybe weeknight steaks with sweet onions—and when we sit down together, the day’s issues fade quickly,” Ms. Poett said. “Food fixes every problem.”

And so she urges all to realize that celebratory gatherings need not require massive effort, nor a centuries-old ranch setting, nor even a table set with white linen, silver, and porcelain.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the back of a pickup truck, or a beach picnic with a foldout table and really good hot dogs,” Ms. Poett said. “Look back on your

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“There I was in LA, and my friends would say on Thursday, ‘So, you going to see the Foo Fighters at Hollywood Bowl Saturday?’ I’d say, ‘Well, no, I’m heading back up to Santa Barbara for the fall branding.’ … It wasn’t very long before I just moved back to San Julian.”

Elizabeth Poett, founder, The Ranch Table life and recall the meals that made the biggest difference in your own story—often they were much simpler than you think.”

Thus her new book, which is organized into a baker’s dozen seasonal events, from a beach cookout (melon with lime and chile, grilled fish tacos, and grilled summer squash) to a tailgate dinner after a gather (avocado dip, beef chili and cornbread—the cornbread, of course, is made in a cast-iron skillet).

Almost all the ingredients for her recipes are widely

not included preview. available, though she does prefer sustainable, local provender such as the free-range beef produced by San Julian’s 700 black Angus mother cows.

“Honestly, I enjoy cooking for 50 people more than just four,” she reported cheerfully. “The more people at the table, the more joy I feel.”

“Making a meal, inviting people over, and eating together is the best way to build community and show appreciation for the people in my life,” she writes in the introduction to her new book. “Keep it simple, keep it fun, and enjoy the moments you have with the people you love in the places you care about.”

It’s hard to think of a better prescription for a better world. •

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COWBOY BRITTLE This sweet, crunchy brittle is a favorite holiday treat among everyone in my family—and is wildly popular with our friends! The recipe comes from Austin’s mom, Debbie. She shared it with me years ago, and it introduced me to the technique for making sugar-based candies. This process can seem intimidating if you’ve never done it, but it’s actually super simple: All you need is a candy thermometer that attaches to the side of the pot and sticks down into the cooking liquid (without touching the bottom of the pot). Then you simply watch the thermometer until the mixture reaches the right temperature, pour it onto a prepared pan, and let it cool. Last, you spread on some melted chocolate and add handfuls of crushed almonds.

Active Time: 25 minutes Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes, including cooling MAKES 12 CUPS

2 cups (4 sticks) salted butter, plus more for greasing 2 cups granulated sugar 3 tablespoons water

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1 cup sliced almonds 12 ounces milk chocolate chips 2 cups finely crushed almonds SPECIAL TOOLS

Candy thermometer ➤ Grease two sheet pans with butter. ➤ Combine the butter, sugar, and water in a deep pot. Attach a candy thermometer to the side of the pot with the end in the liquid but not touching the bottom of the pot. Cook the mixture over medium heat until it reaches 250°F, about 10 minutes. ➤ Add the sliced almonds and stir to combine. Continue to cook the mixture until it reaches 300°F, then immediately pour it onto the prepared pans, dividing it evenly. Do not move the pans around; let the caramel spread naturally. Let the brittle sit until it is just cool enough to safely handle it, about 5 minutes; it should have hardened slightly around the edges and shouldn’t be goopy in the center—if it is, wait another minute or two. Gently flip each big piece of brittle over, set it back into the same pan, and use a paper towel to very

carefully wipe the butter off the top of the brittle, trying not to break it. ➤ While the brittle continues to cool, prepare the chocolate: Melt the chocolate chips in a double-boiler (or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water) over medium heat, stirring frequently with a rubber spatula. ➤ When the chocolate has melted, spread one-fourth of it onto each slab of brittle and sprinkle each with onefourth of the crushed almonds. Flip both slabs over, placing them back in their pans (it’s fine if some of the almonds fall off). Divide the remaining melted chocolate between the two slabs. Spread it out, and sprinkle it with the remaining almonds. ➤ Let the chocolate firm up until it has fully hardened, at least 2 hours, then break the brittle into smaller pieces to serve or wrap up. Store it in an airtight container so that it maintains its crisp texture.

From “The Ranch Table” by Elizabeth Poett. Copyright 2023 by Elizabeth Poett. Reprinted with permission from Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

DAD’S POPOVERS My dad always makes popovers during the holidays. He originally found the recipe in an old New York Times cookbook, but he’s changed it over the years and made it his own.

When I first asked him about his recipe, he told me that the trick is to get the eggs from crazy chickens—a dig at the hens my mom keeps by their house.

Popovers are basically the same thing as Yorkshire puddings—which are served with meat in the UK—except that for a popover, you don’t need meat drippings to season the batter.

All you need is flour, eggs, milk, salt, and vegetable oil. You do need a specific pan to make them—it looks like a muffin tin, but the wells are much deeper and there is open space between each well so that heat can circulate. The good news is that the pans are really easy to find, and once you have one, you’ll want to make popovers all the time. They’re great with eggs for breakfast and go well with flavored butters.

Active Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 45 minutes SERVES 8 TO 10 POPOVERS

Unsalted butter, at room temperature, for greasing 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon kosher salt

add the salt. Add the eggs, milk, and oil, and whisk until the batter is very smooth. ➤ Fill the wells two-thirds to threequarters of the way full, using up all the batter.

➤ Grease the pans generously with

➤ Bake the popovers without opening the oven for 30 to 40 minutes, until they’ve risen up a couple of inches above the pans and are light brown on the outside; you want to make sure the outer part of the popovers gets crispy.

➤ Sift the flour into a large bowl and

➤ Remove the popovers from the pans by gently twisting and then lifting them. Serve warm.

4 large eggs 2 cups whole milk 2 tablespoons vegetable oil ➤ Preheat the oven to 450°F.

butter, making sure there’s butter in all parts of the wells.

“Look back on your life and recall the meals that made the biggest difference in your own story ... often they were much simpler than you think.”

Elizabeth Poett

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Sisters and Muses

Psychologist Amanda Hanson wants to show and guide women into embracing their true selves. For middle-aged women, she has an especially emphatic message: now is the time to flourish

By Xenia Taliotis

A

manda Hanson, clinical psychologist, author, therapist, and one of the most influential voices in the world of personal development and coaching for women—thanks in no small part to her @midlife. muse Instagram, YouTube channel, and 56-episode Revolutionizing Midlife podcast—was busy planning her upcoming retreat when we spoke in early fall.

An international group of women, for whom true love had thus far remained a painfully elusive dream, had signed up for the four-day course, and Ms. Hanson was going through their emails to see what they each hoped to achieve. The answer was unanimous: to find love. But here’s the thing, the women weren’t seeking advice on how to fall in love with another person: No, what they wanted was to fall in love with themselves. Each one was battling her own worst enemy—herself—and was looking for a way to silence the voice that had

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always told her she wasn’t this or that enough, that she had failed to do or be something more; and replace it with one that always showed her compassion, respect, and kindness.

“Women’s inability to love, honor, and value themselves is a global crisis,” said Ms. Hanson. “It transcends nationality, and age, and social demographic. … I want to help women break free from certain misery patterns, such as seeking validation and approval from others, and always putting others’ needs before their own. I want to pass on what I’ve learned—that all the love we need, all the appreciation we need, all the recognition we need, is rooted within us.”

Supporting Women’s Journeys Ms. Hanson, who turned 51 in November, didn’t always specialize in women and midlife. She earned her doctorate at Alliant International University in California (formerly the California

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Whatʼs on Your Holiday Table?

3 celebrity chefs share their must-have recipes

By Crystal Shi

Danny Trejo “I know for a lot of families, Christmas means a roast, but in my neighborhood, Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t be giving out a grand turkey. He’d be giving out tamales,” said Danny Trejo. “To me, Christmas has always meant a full table of tamales.”

The legendary “Machete” star might be most recognizable from his villainous, tough-guy roles on-screen—but he also makes a mean chef. Food and hospitality have always played a major role in the actor-turned-entrepreneur’s life, and Mr. Trejo now has a growing restaurant empire that spans multiple locations of Trejo’s Tacos, Trejo’s Cantina, and Trejo’s Coffee and Donuts in Los Angeles; and two cookbooks, “Trejo’s Tacos” and “Trejo’s Cantina.” He shared a recipe from his latest.

“If you’ve never made tamales because you think they’re difficult, this recipe will change your mind,” he writes. “With just an hour of prep, you’ll have two dozen fluffy, amazing tamales to eat for dinner, lunch the next day, with leftovers to freeze and eat down the road.” His recipe uses a classic cheese and chile filling, but he says it works well with other fillings, too: Try chicken or jackfruit tinga, or beef birria.

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Recipe by DANNY TREJO

SUPER-EASY TAMALES MAKES 30 TAMALES

until smooth, 3 to 5 minutes.

30 dried corn husks

➤ Place a corn husk on a cutting

1 1/2 cups olive oil 10 cups (2 pounds) masa harina, such as King Arthur 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt 3 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken broth 2 (8-ounce) packages shredded Mexican cheese blend 2 (10-ounce) cans roasted chiles, such as Hatch, roughly chopped ➤ Soak the corn husks in a large bowl filled with water until soft, about 1 hour. Place a few cans of beans on top to keep them submerged. ➤ In another large bowl, combine the olive oil, masa harina, baking powder, salt, and broth. Mix with your hands until a pliable dough forms. Knead

board with the wide end toward you. Using a large spoon, spread 1/4 cup of dough in the center. Shape it into a rough round about 4 inches in diameter. Place 2 tablespoons of cheese lengthwise in the center of the dough. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of chiles on top of the cheese.

➤ Lift the two sides of the corn husk

in toward the center like a book so the two sides of masa meet and cover the filling; then, holding the excess corn husk together, fold and wrap it to one side around the tamale. Fold the top and bottom ends over the tamale and turn it over to hold the folded sides down. Repeat until you have about 30 tamales.

➤ In a large pot fitted with a steamer basket, add enough water to just

come up to the level of the steamer basket. Working in batches, arrange the tamales vertically in the steamer basket and turn the heat to medium. Once the water starts to steam, cover the basket and cook until the tamales are fluffy and tender and the cheese is melted, from 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how many you cook at a time. The tamales are super tender when they come out of the basket, but will firm up as they sit.

Let them cool for 30 minutes before serving. You can also let the tamales completely cool and freeze for up to 1 month.

Reprinted with permission from “Trejo’s Cantina” by Danny Trejo with Hugh Carvey, copyright 2023. Photographs by Larchmont Hospitality Group LLC. Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.

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Alex Guarnaschelli For a “refreshing” way to start a holiday meal rich with prime rib and turkey, Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli turns to a family favorite: baked clams.

“This dish is particularly sentimental because my mother made it when I was growing up, and now my daughter, Ava, has turned it into one of her own signature dishes,” Ms. Guarnaschelli said. The Food Network star and restaurateur teamed up with 16-year-old Ava—an avid home cook herself—for her fourth and newest cookbook, “Cook It Up.” Her recipe employs a genius trick: Add a touch of cream to each clam before piling on the breadcrumb crust, and they’ll stay perfectly juicy as they bake. You can also make the filling and stuff the clams in advance, and bake them just before you’re ready to eat.

And for a fun presentation, “serve them on a ‘bed’ of salt to mimic the sand at the beach, and they will be devoured in no time,” Ms. Guarnaschelli said. “It’s a showstopper.”

not included preview.

Recipe by ALEX GUARNASCHELLI

BAKED CLAMS WITH GARLIC

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

40 littleneck clams

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened 2 scallions, white and green parts, minced 3 large garlic cloves, finely minced Zest and juice of 1 medium lemon Kosher salt Freshly ground black pepper 2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs 1/4 cup plain fine breadcrumbs 1/2 to 3/4 cup heavy cream 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley ➤ Preheat the oven to 375°F. ➤ Clean the clams: Clams are still alive when their shells are closed.

Soaking any shellfish for long amounts of time in fresh water is not the answer. They live in and only like saltwater. Under cold running water, use a clean and sturdy sponge to scrub and remove sand from the outside of each clam. Rinse a few times in cool water to remove all the

sand. There is no shortcut here—the best way to clean clams is with elbow grease and patience! ➤ Cook the clams: Heat a large skillet over high heat and add the clams with 1/2 cup water. Cook, shaking the pan slightly, until the clams open, 3 to 5 minutes. As they open, use a pair of metal tongs to transfer them to a large bowl. Discard any clams that

don’t open after 5 minutes. ➤ Make the topping: In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the butter a few times until it’s smooth, then add the scallions, garlic, lemon zest, and half of the lemon juice. Pulse to blend.

Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl and season with a pinch of salt and a few turns of pepper. Mix in the

breadcrumbs. ➤ Prepare and bake the clams: Twist the top shell off each clam and discard. Use a small knife and run it under the clam meat to detach it where it is anchored to the bottom shell. If the clams appear sandy on the inside, rinse clean with cool water.

Put the meat back in the shell. Pour

a touch of the cream on top of each clam and immediately mold about 1 tablespoon of the breadcrumb mixture onto each of the shells so the clam body is totally covered. Arrange them in a single layer on a baking sheet. ➤ Finish: Place the pan in the center of the oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes until hot and sizzling. Preheat the broiler to high. Leave the clams on the middle rack and broil them for a minute, watching them constantly so they don’t burn. Once the topping has browned, remove the pan from the oven. Drizzle the tops with the remaining lemon juice. Sprinkle the clams with the parsley and a pinch of salt and serve immediately.

Reprinted with permission from “Cook It Up: Bold Moves for Family Foods: A Cookbook” by Alex Guarnaschelli and Ava Clark, copyright 2023. Photographs copyright 2023 by Suech and Beck.

Photographs copyright 2023 by Ken Goodman. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

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The Art of the Thank-You Note This holiday season and beyond, revive the art of the handwritten thank-you note

By Annie Holmquist

I

f you’ve noticed that thank-you notes have gone the way of the dinosaurs, you’re not alone. But it’s a lost art worth bringing back, as physical, handwritten thank-you notes not only make a gift-giver feel more appreciated, but also foster community. “You connect differently when you receive a note of gratitude from someone,” said Bethany Friske, etiquette instructor and founder of Doors of Success School of Etiquette.

To jump-start that gratitude connection, Ms. Friske offers the following thank-you note refresher tips.

Voice Your Appreciation Upon receiving a gift at a party, it’s good to verbally express gratitude immediately. Gifts received via mail should receive a verbal thank you via phone or text within 24 hours, to put the giver’s mind at ease that the gift arrived.

Put It on Paper After verbal acknowledgment, follow up with a handwritten thank-you note, Ms. Friske advises, and seek to ensure that the gift-giver receives the note within a week. “It has such an impact when you show gratitude in the written form.”

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Express Yourself Two-sentence thank-you notes are not sufficient, Ms. Friske instructs; instead, they should contain “four lines or more.” For an easy guide, she suggests making the first, second, and last lines about the gift, and the third about something else, such as how much you appreciate the giver’s friendship.

Avoid the Cookie-Cutter Option Preprinted notes—such as a wedding photo with a generic message—should be avoided, Ms. Friske advises. You can, however, write handwritten notes that have similar messages, but they should each have a personal touch.

Teach the Next Generation Writing thank-you notes is a gesture to start at a young age, Ms. Friske says. To pass on this practice to the next generation, and instill the value of gratitude early on, she suggests having children too young to write instead draw a picture of the gift, and dictate a message to an adult.

The Exception There are very few instances in which a thank-you note is unnecessary, but one is the hostess gift.

“The hostess gift is the thank you from [a guest] for hosting,” Ms. Friske explained, and as such, the hostess isn’t obligated to write a note. •

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ABOVE A stained glass window with patriotic symbols at the Glencairn Museum in Pennsylvania.

RIGHT The museum was once the home of local businessman Raymond Pitcairn and his family.

A Very American Castle Raymond Pitcairn’s vision established family, church, and country as the heart of his home

By Matthew John

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not included preview.

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