Dallas Home Shines Nationwide

The Felix family has won $500 for making the top 24 in Patch's Deck the House contest.

Envelope Please! Local Patch 'Deck the House' Finalists

East Atlanta Patch sparkles in national holiday decoration contest for our schools.

Thank you so much Darlene Warren and Carol "Skip" Marklein of Ormewood Park for submitting the entry of your amazingly decorated home in the Patch Deck the House contest. You're the East Atlanta Patch local winner! Congratulations! Tonight we'll find out if you are among the 24 National Finalists—fingers crossed. Each Top 24 Finalist is guaranteed $500 to help pay those holiday-sized electric bills and a shot at winning a $100,000 donation for their public school district. A special thank you to everyone who entered. You made our dark drives home more festive and "oooh-worthy" this holiday season. National voting begins Friday morning, Dec. 30, at 9 a.m., Eastern Standard Time. Vote once a day, every day, for your favorite — and feel free …

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Our Patch

This Isn't Your Grandfather's Caroling

Midway Pub hosts a Christmas Spectacular, collects food for the hungry

The EAV isn't known for doing things the conventional way. And so it is with Christmas. On Wednesday night, the Midway Pub hosted its own Gil Henry Durant, who, along with several Midway waitresses, presented his Christmas Spectacular. But it wasn’t all fun and games: the show was for a good cause with patrons bringing in canned goods to be donated to local food banks. Patch was there and captured some snippets of Durant’s crowd-pleasing performance.

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"White Christmas" The Greatest Holiday Tune Ever?

WCBS-FM ranks Bing Crosby song as No. 1

When it comes to the holidays, we all have our our favorite traditions. A large part of those traditions is music. While we never cared for it, Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" is considered the best holiday song ever. WCBS-FM has ranked the top 100. Some of those in the Top 10 are recognizable standards; others are a surprise. What's your take? Is "White Christmas" tops with you? What about the others that round out the Top 10? Do you agree with the rankings or are there some glaring omissions?:

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Péralte Paul

7:06 pm on Tuesday, December 13, 2011

I prefer "Minuit, Chrétiens" by Tino Rossi. But no French carols made the list. :-)   more ›

From The Editor's Desk

What's Your Holiday Soundtrack?

Holiday music sparks memories of Christmases past

The holidays always take me back to my earliest Christmas memory: Singing carols with my mother as she let me help decorate the tree for the first time. We were living in Brooklyn at the time and I remember thinking that I was no longer a kid — even though I was only four — because she finally let me help hang the glass ornaments up. I helped until I accidentally dropped one glass ball depicting the Holy Family. So she put me in charge of something decidedly less dangerous: Going through her LPs and pulling out all the Christmas albums. I knew most of the songs by heart already, but it was fun to play them and sing along and watch her and grandmother put up the ornaments, lights and garlands. My parents spoke French and Haitian Creole …

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From The Editor's Desk

Christmas Trees: Real Or Reasonable Facsimile?

We're green in East Atlanta Patch but not when it comes to the holidays

When it comes to the Christmas holiday and trees, you have two camps of decorators: the impressionists and the realists. The impressionists are the people who put up an artificial tree, light pine forest-scented candles and call it a day. My family was in that camp when I was growing up. Then there are others — the realists — who insist nothing's better than the real thing. They swear it's not a real Christmas unless they have the scent of real pine wafting through the air. I'm no Grinch but I'm cheap. I never saw the practicality of chopping down a living thing year after year compared with buying a fake tree just once that I could use over and over. Heck, if the wrapping paper is nice enough after I've opened the gift, I use it to rewrap…

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Patch Voices

Remember The Neediest at Holiday Time

Holiday can-a-thon for the Salvation Army is Dec. 2 at Turner Field, other locations

by Kate Keib As we approach the 2011 Holiday Season, we would like you to know that your support is needed now more than ever for the 29th Annual 11Alive Holiday Can-a-thon. Because of today's economy, many of our friends and neighbors are coming to The Salvation Army for the first time. And with your assistance, thousands of our friends and neighbors in need will receive help. While the 11Alive Holiday Can-a-thon has raised more than one million cans of food since 1982, there are still many hungry and homeless in our community who need our help. The Salvation Army has been our beneficiary of Can-a-thon food for 28 years. Families who come to The Salvation Army for assistance do not have to pay one penny for their food. The Salvation Army …

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Thousands Enjoy Thanksgiving Morning Run Through Old Fourth Ward

The East Atlanta Patch community was host to thousands of runners earning their turkey on Thanksgiving morning.

Thousands of runners and walkers spent their morning winding through Downtown, Midtown and the Old Fourth Ward in the Atlanta Half Marathon and 5k runs. The annual event is sponsored by the Atlanta Track Club. As somebody who ran this morning's race, I'd like to say thank you to all the volunteers who handed out water, helped warn runners about potholes and did all the other things needed to make an event like this possible. And thanks to the spectators, even that guy in Atlantic Station with the sign that joked, "Worst Parade Ever." Were you out there? Share your photos and your story with Patch.

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How Much Money Do You Plan To Spend This Holiday Season?

One survey suggests nearly two-thirds of Americans have no budget or set limit

With state and national unemployement figures hovering at 10.2 percent and 9 percent, respectively, it would be understandable if people planned to ease up on shopping this holiday season. But collectively, we plan to spend more and many of us won't even have a plan for how much we will spend. Forty-nine pecent of respondents in a survey express being "much more" or "somewhat more" concerned about their ability to afford holiday-related expenses, says the National Endowment for Financial Education, a non-profit group. Even so, 63 percent of survey respondents will not set or plan to have a budget for the holiday shopping season, which kicks off the day after Thanksgiving with the frenzy of Black Friday. American Express' Spending & Saving …

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Péralte Paul

1:13 am on Thursday, November 24, 2011

Friendship and laughter are always welcome!   more ›