SENIOR INSIGHTS
This Jewish Girl Loves Christmas
I LOVE CHRISTMAS! It is one of my favorite holidays. No holiday blahs for me, for Christmas fills me with nostalgia, and happy memories mesh with the present. Never mind that I’m Jewish. I was born on a dairy farm in Penfield, a small town outside of Rochester in upstate New York. I went to the same one-room schoolhouse as did my father, my older sisters, and brother before me. . . . As the teacher started to make plans for the holiday festivities, I always looked forward to making the ornaments for the tree, which mostly meant gluing together lots of strips of red and green paper to form the chains that we hung, along with the popcorn that we made and strung. And, of course, there was the grandest event of all: the Christmas party . . .

GENERATIONS
Fostering with an Empty Nest
Looking for a way to give back once your children have left your home? Consider becoming a foster parent. Maurice Dorris, Licensing Coordinator for ChildServ, a social services agency in Chicago, says the agency is seeing that more and more of its parents are empty nesters. Approximately 30 percent of ChildServ’s foster parents are empty nesters—about 54 households, in total. According to Maurice, empty nesters make great foster parents because they have experience raising children already. “They’ve done it before,” Maurice says. “They know what it takes, and they want to show the children that they are loved and cared for” . . .

BODY
Love in the Time of Thick-Waistedness
Loving myself in the time of thick-waistedness has proved somewhat challenging. The thickening part started in my late forties, but being an avid gym rat and a semi–health–food person, I discarded the notion of middle-age spread. I discarded the notion until lately, when I found myself paying attention to “Hydroxy-Cut” commercials and other gut-busting remedies. Inwardly, I groaned, thinking I was surely beyond thinking that appearance equals self-worth. Apparently not . . .

STYLE
Dream Coats
Ilene Pearl makes the coats of her dreams—and maybe yours. It has to be her sixth or seventh career so far . . . There are (at least) a million stories of enthusiastic young fashionistas who decide to turn pro on the apparent assumption that working in fashion design or merchandising will be as much fun as shopping, only better because you get paid. Ilene Pearl’s bio doesn’t really fit the genre. For one thing, she was 57 when she took the plunge . . .

Features . . .