Table of contents for December 2019/January 2020 in Reader's Digest

I KEPT READING it, trying to figure it out,” my mother says on the phone. “Waste of my time.” “C’mon, Mom,” I say. “Mother Goose as a stand-in for ‘Dear Abby’? Where’s your sense of humor?” “Apparently not sharp enough for Reader’s Digest,” she quips. We’re bantering about the October RD, as we do about every issue. It’s as if we’re tossing the magazine back and forth across the room, groaning and appreciating, like she would with my dad if he were alive. Except he’s not, and she lives 3,000 miles away. She tells me she smiled throughout “The Bear Who Came to Dinner.” She didn’t get the joke about a guy worried about running “a 401k race.” “See?” I explain. “He’s worried the race is 401 kilo meters.” Long…

FROM THE BOOK IT’S OK THAT YOU’RE NOT OK ON A BEAUTIFUL, ordinary summer day in 2009, I watched my partner drown. Matt was strong and healthy—just three months from his 40th birthday. We had joked that he was half mountain goat, able to scale waterfalls if need be. There was no reason he should have drowned. It was random, unexpected, and it tore my world apart. We had gone out to the river on the first sunny day after several weeks of rain. Matt went swimming while I stayed in the woods with our dog. When he called out for help, I saw him swept away by a flood-swollen current. The dog and I ran in, trying to save him, but were carried two miles downriver. Search teams found…

How did I know my new coworker was a veteran? When I heard him describe the impending birth of his first child as “when the baby has boots on the ground.” —DUSTIN THOMPSONLong Beach, California I was stationed in England with the Air Force when I went to a local barber. I told him that I had a date that night and asked for a very close shave. After working his magic, the barber exclaimed, “There you go, Yank. If you want it any closer than that, you’ll have to bite ’em off from the inside.” —SENIOR MASTER SERGEANT JOHN SOTOMAYOR (RET.)Somerset, Pennsylvania Visiting Annapolis, I noticed several plebes on their hands and knees holding pencils and clipboards. “What are they doing?” I asked our tour guide. “Each year, the…

What’s a sheep’s favorite Christmas song? “Fleece Navidad.” —SPOTTED ON RD.COM A Maryland man spent a year eating foods past their expiration dates—including moldy butter—to prove that those dates are arbitrary. The Week asked its readers to think of titles for an outdated-foods cookbook. Here are the most appetizing: ✦ Green Eggs and Ham and Cheese and Salami ✦ Eat. Pray. Live? ✦ Pasta Its Prima ✦ Gone Appétit ✦ Moldies but Goodies ✦ Baking Bad ✦ Better Ate Than Never What does the Gingerbread Man use to make his bed? Cookie sheets. —ALSO SPOTTED ON RD.COM Farmer McDonald set up a roadside stand to sell his fresh vegetables, and a very curious customer asked McDonald if his tomatoes were genetically modified. “No, not at all,” said the tomatoes. —THEIRISHGIFTHOUSE.COM…

FROM THE WASHINGTON POST THE SPOT OF red was what first caught Randy Heiss’s attention on December 16, 2018. He was hiking the remote expanse of land behind his ranch in Patagonia, Arizona, a town near the U.S.-Mexico border, and draped against the sacaton grass was a balloon—or at least the tattered remnants of one. Heiss walked toward it with his dog, Feliz, thinking he should pick up the latex pieces and throw them away. That’s when he noticed the balloon’s string was attached to a piece of paper. “Dayami,” it read on one side, in a child’s writing. A hand-drawn bow accompanied the word. Heiss flipped the paper over. It was a numbered list, all in Spanish. “My Spanish isn’t very good, but I could see it was a…

FROM THE BOOK OCCASIONAL MAGIC IT WAS CHRISTMASTIME, 1974. I was ten years old, but I was not looking forward to Christmas. The previous spring, my mother and the man who was to become my stepfather had moved our family from rural Alabama to sunny Southern California. My little brother, Todd, and I were leaving behind our father and all of our extended family. This would be my first Christmas away from Alabama. My elegant mother took to California like a swan to a royal lake. My soon-to-be stepfather was a California native. My athletic little brother reveled in a climate that allowed him to be outdoors 11 months of the year. I, however, was a fat, awkward child with a high-pitched voice and a heavy southern accent. My first…

Gun control is one of the most polarizing political issues we face today—or is it? There is no doubt that the topic generates fierce opinions from both sides. But on many questions about how to reduce the number of gun-related deaths—something 85 percent of Americans say they are “concerned” about—there is far more agreement than the debaters or politicians let on. In fact, a recent Ipsos/Reuters poll found that only 37 percent of Americans are even somewhat confident that their elected officials understand their views on guns. If the public servants in Washington want to follow the will of the people—including the 42 percent of Americans who have a gun at home, according to Pew Research—they could start by looking at these areas where the vast majority of Americans agree…

A happy Word Power memory: Doing Word Power was a friendly competition between my father and me. I would give him my RD with my WP score circled in the upper right-hand corner of that page. Wouldn’t be long until he called with his results. We thought we were pretty smart if one of us got every word correct! Dad has been gone for 20-plus years, but I still circle my score and wonder how he would have done. —SUZANNE LYONS NUSS State College, Pennsylvania The Word Power word that my husband and I have incorporated into our vocabulary (and has become one of our favorites) is zarf, which means “coffee cup sleeve.” In fact, it is such a normal word for us that when we mention needing one at…

20 Foods Proven to Heal This article was right on time. We are dealing with our elderly parents and understand that we can avoid some of their ailments by changing how we are eating, exercising, and handling stress. —BRENDA BROWN-PAULUpper Marlboro, Maryland The Weight of the Badge This sobering and heartbreaking story brought me to tears. The men and women in law enforcement are the ones who arrive when called, stand between us and danger, and sometimes even take the bullet that was meant for us. To each one of them and their families, I say thank you, and God bless you. —SHERYL VEDBRAATENCrookston, Minnesota Everyday Heroes The story of Bev Wedelstedt’s ordeal on Colorado’s Grays Peak was a real heart-warmer. After six strangers took turns carrying her down the…

’Tweets the Night Before Christmas … ✦ My mom’s angry with me for letting the dogs see their presents before tomorrow morning. Apparently I ruined their Christmas. —@AKFARIZEL ✦ One of my four nephews just brought me wine and said, “Here’s your Christmas juice,” and now he’s the one I’m leaving everything to. —@KENDRAGARDEN ✦ The older you get, the more holidays become about keeping your father off a ladder. —@SHUTUPMIKEGINN The young man loading groceries into my car let out a violent sneeze. “Bless you!” I shouted. He leaned in the window, shook his head, and said, “Nah, just doin’ my job. But thanks.” —D.L. via rd.com At the Christmas Eve service at my church, the pastor, quizzing some children about the nativity, asked, “What gifts did the three…

✦ A Swedish mother wanted to have the name of her two-year-old tattooed on her arm. Although Kevin is not a complicated name, the tattoo artist managed to misspell it by adding an l, turning it into Kelvin. The mother was horrified. But after learning it would take multiple treatments to remove the tattoo, she and her husband came up with a far simpler and less painful fix: They changed their son’s name to Kelvin. —CTV NEWS ✦ When Oprah Winfrey came to the United States in 1993 as a refugee from Liberia, she could neither read nor write English. But she worked hard, started a business, and in 2015 became a U.S. citizen. And that was when Winfrey, née Bonita Dunbar, changed her name to that of her idol.…

I cannot tell you anything that, in a few minutes, will tell you how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful … It’s the only reliable get-rich-quick scheme. —Ben Stein, WRITER AND TV HOST Never let the things you want make you forget the things you have. —Sanchita Pandey, WRITER The miracle is this: The more we share, the more we have. —Leonard Nimoy, ACTOR Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough. —Oprah Winfrey, TV HOST Gratitude is the closest thing to beauty manifested in an emotion. —Mindy Kaling, ACTOR Grateful for long…

WHILE VISITING a farm, my friend Lance thought the animals and bucolic setting would make for a perfect Christmas card. His wife, Emma, however, was not interested in posing. Lance was undeterred. He would get his Christmas photo with or without her. Fast-forward to December, and I open his card. There, beneath lettering that read “Merry Christmas from Lance and Emma,” was a photo of my smiling friend—posing with a donkey. If you enjoy holiday cards that make you smile—or shed a tear—read on. It was December 2015, and my mother was living in a senior-care center. I noticed that the highlight of the day for the residents was when the mail was delivered. Then and there, I vowed to write my mom a “holiday” postcard every day so that…

WASHINGTON IS HOME to lots of trees—it is the Evergreen State, after all—and lots of fireplaces and wood-burning stoves too. But what if you lived there and couldn’t chop wood or couldn’t afford to pay someone to do it? Luckily, Shane McDaniel and his twin sons, Harrison and Henry McDaniel, 21, are happy to lend an ax. The three men chop truckloads of wood—then donate it to those in need. “I want people who are burning cardboard because they’ve got nothing,” Shane explained to heraldnet.com. “Or someone 75 with no money who has a broken shoulder and can’t cut wood.” The idea started as a father-son bonding project, he told msn.com. “I had to cut wood with my dad. He just loved doing it,” says Shane, 48, a divorced father…

Driving 1 Do your research. In mid-November, Google releases an interactive report called “Mapping Thanksgiving.” Based on Google Maps data from the previous year, it breaks down the best and worst times to drive in 25 metro areas around the country. 2 Get a tune-up. The American Automobile Association estimates that it will provide roadside assistance to about 1.2 million motorists during the 2019 holiday season. To avoid a breakdown, get your fluids, battery, and tires checked before you hit the road. 3 Stick to two-digit interstates. Roads such as Interstate 80 are most often direct routes through cities, while three-digit interstates tend to circle urban areas, according to the Federal Highway Administration. 4 Stay the course. The surest way to waste time on a road trip is to get…

If my calculations are correct, Slinky + escalator = everlasting fun. —@ray You deserve whatever happens to you on a pogo stick. —@TigNotaro This morning I brushed my hair with an American Girl doll brush because apparently she’s the only one in my house who puts things back where they belong. —@mommajessiec My daughter loves all the toys she sees in commercials, so of course I have to tell her they don’t exist in real life, just on TV. —@Jenny4ashley When I was a kid I made all my toys watch Toy Story so they knew I was onto them. —@JakeNotStFarm If The Lego Movie is about anything other than parents cursing after stepping on Legos, it’s not based on a true story. —@andylassner…

VEGGIES LOWER BREAST CANCER RISK In two large observational studies analyzed by Harvard University health scientists, eating 5.5 or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day was associated with an 11 percent reduced likelihood of getting breast cancer, compared with 2.5 servings or fewer. The effect was even more pronounced for aggressive forms of breast cancer such as ER-negative and HER2-enriched tumors. Cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, cauliflower, and kale) and orange and yellow ones (carrots, sweet potatoes) appeared to pack the greatest preventive punch. A New Test for Early Alzheimer’s Having trouble figuring out which way to go can be an early sign of Alzheimer’s. That’s because one of the first regions of the brain to be damaged by the disease is the entorhinal cortex, which is key…

MICHAEL AND JULIE ANDREACOLA, ages 56 and 52, Indian Trail, North Carolina How did you come up with a sci-fi design? Julie: My husband had started to experiment with using a laser to cut the gingerbread. We knew we had something that the judges had never seen before, and we felt that it lent itself to a steampunk theme. So our piece, “Gearing Up for Christmas,” shows Santa creating a rocket-powered sleigh. It looks perfect. Any mishaps along the way? Mike: After learning to not set the ginger-bread on fire with the laser? It has to be very carefully done, not like wood or plastic. It took a little while. How much time? Mike: Between the two of us, 900 hours. What’s it like working as a team? Mike: For…

✦ Upon finding a clearly plagiarized paper, I called the student into my office. Pointing to my computer screen, I said, “I found your entire paper online. Do you have anything you want to say about that?” Her angry response: “Well, I paid my sister to write it, but I didn’t think she’d plagiarize!” —Christina M. Rau LYNBROOK, NEW YORK ✦ When I was in the eighth grade, two kids stole the teacher’s book with the test answer. But our teacher realized that they had cheated on the test. How? They wrote “Answers will vary” for some of the questions. —COLLEGECONFIDENTIAL.COM ✦ The homework assignment for my Spanish class was to write a paragraph. When I returned their papers, I asked one student if he had used Google Translate or…

Can’t sleep at night. Numb feet make you unsteady. RX meds make you drowsy. Sound familiar? If so, Dr. Tammi Chapman, DPM of TLC Foot Doc, Ltd. suggests giving Frankincense & Myrrh Neuropathy a try. “It’s a great, non-prescription option, and we are seeing good results with our patients who use it. It has helped a good 75% of my patients find temporary relief,” says Dr. Chapman. “Many of my patients are on a plethora of medications. Frankincense & Myrrh Neuropathy takes the edge off pain without negative interactions with prescription medications. It’s an effective pain relief option that actually helps patients get back to doing the things they love.” “75% OF MY PATIENTS FIND TEMPORARY RELIEF.” DR. TAMMI CHAPMAN Frankincense & Myrrh Neuropathy is a safe, non-drowsy, topical rubbing…