Give Thanks for This Old-Fashioned Holiday

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Inside my house, it is still Halloween. A giant bat hangs over the sliding glass door. Scary Man, laden with chains, shrieks in the hall. The kitchen witch cackles whenever a dish is clanked or someone bumps into her.

Outside my house, Halloween was over weeks before it arrived. Christmas pushed it aside in the middle of October, wreaths and Santas and holiday deals dwarfing pumpkins and ghouls and candy corn. There was Christmas music…

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Yes, Manners Still Matter

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You can't make up these things. It was last month. A weekday. I was meeting Rosanne Thomas for lunch to talk about her new book, "Excuse Me — The Survival Guide to Modern Business Etiquette," because Thomas teaches manners in these mannerless times, and, God knows, a course in civility and kindness and an awareness of others are things our culture could use a dose of right now…

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