Today's Features

It took crews at Wakefield-Scearce Galleries nearly 11 months to prepare for the store’s annual holiday extravaganza. It took shoppers only days to ravage it.

A rush on ornaments and decorations at the Washington Street antique dealer has left some trees lopsided –– and others almost bare –– since the gallery debuted its holiday stock last month.

Information was gathered from previous years of The Shelby Sentinel, The Shelby News and The Sentinel-News. You can reach the writer at sharonw@sentinelnews.com.

If anyone has an old photo that they would like to run with this column bring it and the information into The Sentinel-News office or e-mail it to the writer at sharonw@sentinelnews.com. We are also looking for mystery photos. If you have a picture you can't identify, send it in and we'll ask our readers for help.

We’d never spent a Christmas season more than six inches apart from at least one member of our immediate family – until last year.

We find ourselves nearly 8,000 miles away – literally on the other side of the world. We sit not by a decorated tree but in a chilly, dimly lit and officious conference room.

One of the best things about January is all the good catalogs that come in the mail.

 It is much easier to believe that spring will come again when you have a stack of catalogs that show glossy pictures of fruits, vegetables and flowers.  The extra time spent indoors by the fire also allows us to spend some time plotting and planning what we want to add to the garden in 2009.