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Holiday traditions

Lifestyle Columns

The holiday season is upon us! It is a season of honoring traditions with family and friends. A few of my fellow staff members shared some of their holiday traditions with me. LeRoy’s holiday traditions span the whole month of December. “A few from our family: each of the children prepare a gift for one of their siblings - selected in advance so they can be thoughtful about it. They get very excited seeing their gift being given. We do secret Santa with treats to neighbors and friends. We plan a different event each day in December leading up to Christmas that involves a game, ...

Lifting a business to new levels

Lifestyle Feature

For more than a quarter century, Lafayette Lift Trucks has sold and serviced fork lift trucks in Southern Minnesota. Business owner Ben Anderson said his father Bob worked for Forklifts of Minnesota in Bloomington for 12 years before deciding to buy a farm house near Lafayette. Bob Anderson ...

Recent Reads

Lifestyle Columns

I hope that you’ll have a bit of time to relax and read during the upcoming holiday rush. Here are a few novels that I’ve read and enjoyed recently in case you need some ideas. A blonde woman wakes up in the middle of a snowy sidewalk in Paris, her head throbbing. A man with a gun runs up to her, calls her Alex, and whisks her down a side alley, leaving gunshots and black SUVs behind. It seems she’s woken up in the middle of a spy movie, except she can’t remember how she got there, let alone her name. All she knows is that the man with the gun – a very handsome man – seems ...

Puffy lamp brings beauty with the lights off

Lifestyle Feature

As we go deeper into December, the nights get longer and the days darker. It’s no wonder so many holiday traditions involve lights, from the Hanukkah menorah to strings of Christmas tree lights to Kwanzaa candles. In the early 20th century, everyday lights could look festive, too. Incandescent light bulbs were invented in 1879. While they took some time to replace familiar light sources like candles and oil lamps, designers quickly realized their potential. Amplifying the light and protecting the flame were no longer the highest priorities for lighting design. In fact, electric ...

Real trees, real memories

Lifestyle Feature

NEW ULM -- Artificial trees may be popular with some crowds around the holidays, but a fresh-cut Christmas tree never goes out of style. New Ulm’s Tony Guggisberg already knew that, but it’s become more apparent over the past few years. In addition to spending time working at the River ...

How grief, creating characters and wigs helped comic Heather McMahan to build a loyal following

Lifestyle Columns

When Heather McMahan recently debuted her first Netflix comedy special, “Son I Never Had,” the fan reaction was as though their best girlfriend had achieved a major win. “The coolest thing about this job is a lot of people have been on this journey with me from the beginning,” said McMahan recently over Zoom. “They found me on social media years ago and they’ve been rooting for me. It kind of feels like I’ve been in this giant life sorority and everyone’s like, ‘She did it.’” McMahan moved from Los Angeles back home to Atlanta when her father died from ...