So I'm Fat: What's Your Excuse?

It's that time of year again, folks. The Christmas tree has shed enough needles that it hardly matters what size it was coming into the house; it's going out as a Charlie Brown variety. You, on the other hand, have grown like the Grinch's heart over the holiday.

Pleasantly plump going into the holidays, gargantuan going out; that's my motto.

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LEGO Goes Girly: The Real Problem

If you're starting to feel like the LEGO goes girly debate has already jumped the shark, my apologies. Because no one has hit on the real issue . . . at least not yet.

The Danish company so beloved by us parents for encouraging our kids to use their imaginations really put their foot in it this month when they unveiled the soon-to-come LEGO Friends line for girls. To whit, it looks like someone borrowed the pastel palette from the Easter M&M line and threw it all over a bunch of the bricks. And then there are the new minifigures, with back stories like "beautician" and "social butterfly."

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Scooby Doo Can't Solve This Christmas Cookie Mystery

Ask most writers their weakest point, and we'll look right, then left, and then ruefully shake our heads. "Numbers," we'll whisper, "they just don't make sense."

My apologies to my fellow scribes. I'm not whispering. I am shouting this one from the rooftops.

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The Santa Lie Is a Reporter's Downfall

There's really just one guiding rule of journalism: tell the truth. Every other one - be unbiased, be observant - comes back to that one.

And yet, there's one time when it's officially acceptable to bust that rule. And as a proud member of the Sullivan County Democrat staff, I am prouder still to say I've done it. I've smashed it to smithereens.

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Teaching Kids to Read Is an Epic Mistake

When they tell you about the day your child finally learns to read, it's always in glowing terms. They use words that, honestly, your kid won't actually get right away. Stuff like pride! Heart 'a blazing. Satisfaction!

And they're right. Of course they are. Generations of kids have learned to read before yours, and yet the first time they perfectly pronounce the name on a billboard, you will preen like they're the very first to get it so soon. Even you couldn't have been such a prodigy when you were a kid.

Now here is what they don't tell you.

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