Their analysis of which states are the most Christmas-obsessed came from a variety of data points. Google searches for Christmas movies and gingerbread houses formed 29 percent of the final scores. Online shopping, measured via Google Shopping Trends, for wrapping paper, Christmas cards, and ornaments, and the maligned Elf on a Shelf accounted for 28 percent of Christmas love. Christmas music streams and tweets were collectively 21.5 percent, while Christmas tree farms per capita (seven percent) and IRS charitable giving figures from the last tax year (14....

“Why did I do it? So… my friends had boyfriends. And I didn’t. I mean, no one at my school seems like worth it. And it’s like, an easier way to find other people in the area. I was also considering hooking up with people,” says Jenna, who is now 19. “Was it useful? That’s debatable.” Jenna joined Tinder in 2016, shortly after the company announced that the platform would be excluding the 13- to 17-year-olds it had previously welcomed....

That’s why, when Tom Hanks received a letter from a 7-year-old Australian boy named Corona De Vries asking how he was doing, he responded two weeks ago using one of his many typewriters — specifically the one he brought to Australia. Corona also mentioned that, despite the fact that he really loved his name, he was the subject of bullying in his town by peers in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic....

Play foods are what’s known as real-world toys: Playing with them helps children make sense of the world and understand what goes on around them. They mimic what they see the adults in their lives doing, which often means making meals in the kitchen. And in this case, they get bendable pasta, which they can twist into whatever shape they want (i.e., what they really want to be doing every time pasta’s for dinner)....

The detail and design are so intricate that, up close, the fully-licensed Land Rover TRX-4 could easily pass as a shrink-rayed clone of its full-sized, 4×4 inspiration. But in exhaustively duplicating a Land Rover Defender at a hundredth the size, Traxxas has managed to create a remote-controlled car that miraculously retains some of the most badass features of a real off-road vehicle. Like its namesake, the scale model is built for off-road terrain and extreme obstacles and features an innovative portal axle set that lifts the truck for ground clearance....

Approximately 11,560 units of the bikes are being recalled due to a faulty steer tube clamp that may break if overtightened. As a result, the handlebars could come off and cause children to fall. So far, the CPSC has received 11 reports of broken clamps and one minor injury of scrapes and bruises. The affected products are all Kickster models sold from August 2012 and April 2019 at independent bicycle stores across the U....

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned against kids and parents participating in the yearly trick-or-treat tradition. With the pandemic entering its first fall where cases were expected to rise, experts cautioned parents about going through with typical Halloween activities. It wasn’t ideal, obviously, but it was deemed necessary at the time. Many people DIY’d treat chutes and parents set up at-home Halloween games for their kids....

But you might not know that if you’ve only seen the film on Canadian television in the last five years. Along with other footage, Trump’s scene was cut when the film was adapted for television. It’s a standard practice that predates Trump’s 2016 campaign, the CBC’s head of public affairs was forced to explain. We say “forced” because some of the president’s perpetually aggrieved supporters see the move as a slap in the face despite all of the evidence to the contrary....

TikTok user thevideobunker shared a video tour of the mock rental store that her husband made in quarantine boredom. Every detail was thought out to look exactly like an old-school video rental store. And it helps that most of the supplies come from a real video store that went out of business during quarantine. Without knowing this was built in someone’s basement as an ode to the video rental phase, we would think this was the real deal....

America has been letting down immigrant children for a long time. Presidents of both parties have done so. Irresponsible is, when it comes to the handling of very young immigrants, the default mode. Unfortunately, the viral dust-up didn’t do anything at all to help improve the lot of immigrant kids. The picture should have prompted Americans of all stripes to agree that we, as a nation of ostensibly compassionate people, shouldn’t be making laws that make the lives of immigrant kids worse....

The two books Seguín is referring to are 2006’s Bread and Roses, Too, which tells the story of a young girl in Lawrence, Massachusetts during the aftermath of the Lawrence Textile Strike (also known as the Bread and Roses Strike), and 2017’s My Brigadista Year, which is about a teen girl in Cuba who volunteers for Fidel Castro’s literacy campaign in the early 60s. TerabithiaTerabithiadeathstorytelling Paterson said of writing

Scientists at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have launched a website asking people to help them find walruses in satellite images, NPR reports. By doing so, you can help the research team understand more about how the animals are responding to ecological issues like climate change. To get started, visit the “Walrus from Space” website and sign up. They recommend that anyone 10 and older can participate, though anyone under age 13 needs to get their parent’s permission....

After suggesting that Ambrosia Kelley — the young actor who played Nikki Bell, the daughter of Fox’s Vernita Green in the first Kill Bill movie — reprise her role 16 years later, Fox brought up another, more widely-known name. “If not, if I could have my dream daughter? Zendaya. She’s tall, she’s got those long legs; she would kick ass!” Fox elaborated on the possibility in a subsequent interview with NME....

I’m 29 and thinking I’m way too old for this. Yet here I am. They look like shadows against the night sky. The force of the blades shakes the trees. Their wind sweeps back my hair. The whole sky hums. Once each helicopter lands softly on the hill in the middle of the woods, past the dark tree line, only a few dozen feet away, I hear the soldiers jump out of the helicopters and march further into the night....

For eagle-eyed watchers of the Smithsonian live cams — cameras set up at several of the exhibits at the Smithsonian Zoo, especially including the panda habitat — the chance to watch a couple of pandas frolic in the snow couldn’t be missed. And while the Smithsonian live stream is still up and running (and, dare we say, a good way to pass the time as you’re stuck inside in between bouts of snowball fights) and there’s plenty of opportunities to keep an eye to see if the pandas get into their own snowball fights, the Smithsonian Zoo has stepped in to make things easier....

First of all, the physical risks are negligible. Men may injure their penises if they masturbate too vigorously or too often (without lube). But onanism is the only form of sexual expression that carries no risk of STIs. Contrary to popular belief, masturbation also does not increase the risk of prostate cancer or decrease sperm count or quality. That said, when it comes to emotional and mental health risks, there may be cause for concern in the age of pornography....

Also known as emotional-cheating, micro cheating falls under the umbrella of emotional infidelity and refers to small, seemingly insignificant things that a person can do that, while not explicitly unfaithful, can carry with them the hint of infidelity. No, having a friendship with a person of the opposite sex — or of the same sex for non-hetero couples — doesn’t make you a cheater, micro or otherwise. However, if certain behaviors are left unchecked, there’s a chance they could snowball into something more....

We’d rushed to the hospital earlier that day, knowing a failed IUD can be a life-threatening emergency. Luckily, the sonogram showed that her life was safe, but we were less confident about her rights. The date was October 7, 2018. A day before, two thousand miles away, Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. This story was submitted by a Fatherly reader. Opinions expressed in the story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Fatherly as a publication....

READ MORE: The Fatherly Guide to Sex After Kids Having your young child see you mid-pump? You may have some ’splainin to do, but Deborah Roffman says it doesn’t have to be a crisis. Roffman has advised parents and kids alike on sex and human sexuality since 1971, both in her work as a sexuality educator at the Park School of Baltimore, and as an author of Talk to Me First: Everything You Need to Know to Become Your Kids’ ‘Go-To’ Person About Sex....

As any pop culture junkie knows, the power of ’80s nostalgia is not only unstoppable but occasionally, confusing. Things that are borderline terrible (like He-Man) have become canonized alongside works of undeniable genius (like Ghostbusters.) In the mind of the ’80s kid, all of these things were good, because they’re a part of ’80s pop culture, even if the truth of that quality is hard to pin down. The question of which year of the 80s had the best movies, then, is a fun one to wrestle with....