It looked like Hurricane Iwa had swept through the living room. More »

This is the season when a familiar question begins echoing in homes throughout the land: "What do you want for Christmas?" We've all heard answers ranging from reasonable (a CD, a toy truck, a sweater) to poignant (a job, good health, friends) to outrageous (a sports car, a five-thousand-dollar pinball machine from The Sharper Image catalogue). More »

A Florida family sent two Christmas letters to relatives and friends a few years ago. They weren't the typical annual reports of milestones. More »

Most of us do a lot of talking, much of it about other people. Some of our people talk is just practical: "Are you still working on those invoices? Joe's been waiting for them all morning!" Some of it is pretty personal: "Hey, I heard Joe's wife walked out on him. Couldn't take his drinking anymore." More »

My stomach sank and my face went numb as I opened the gift addressed to me. It contained the small Christmas stocking I had hand-stitched for my stepmother two years before. I couldn't believe it: Once again, she had wrapped and returned something that I had made especially for her. This was no oversight, I suspected, but a deliberately hurtful gesture. It felt like a slap in the face. More »

My wife and I like books and movies, and as our children have grown up, we've enjoyed introducing them to our favorites. We've raised them on regular doses of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other contemporary authors, as well as lives of the saints, Bible stories, and classics of children's literature. We've shared our enthusiasm for various movies (being a runner, I'm a great fan of Chariots of Fire). More »

Here are some questions you can fruitfully apply as you watch and read. Try using them for your own reflection and as a teaching tool with your kids. More »

I grew up reading almost everything I could get my hands on. Thrilled that I showed so much interest, no one prohibited or directed my passion. Unfortunately, my ability to read words and understand plots did not mean that I was mature enough to assess the morality or "truth content" of the works I was encountering. At fourteen, who is equipped to weigh the ideas of the German philosopher Nietzsche? And even some of the "great books" I read too early left me confused. More »