This is Northampton Living's fourth holiday season, and we are deeply thankful to the residents and businesses that have supported our mission: to put the community and residents on our covers, and to fill our pages with your stories.

We have a wonderful problem and would love your help with the solution. The response from the community has been overwhelming. To accommodate more of our uniquely uplifting content, we have already expanded our page count. To expand again, we need more business sponsors who believe in a positive, family-focused publication dedicated to Northampton.

Even though the school year has just begun, some families may already be thinking about educational options for next fall. This is especially true if their child is at a transition point in their education. Typically, parents will hear about schools – and their reputations – from people in their social circles. Then if they’re especially interested, they’ll go online to seek out more information. The best action families can take after that is to make in-person visits to selected schools and experience the learning environment firsthand. Here are some questions to think about during the school exploration process:

When Daniel Reider moved to the area in November 2019, he didn’t know a soul in Northampton. After a 12-year career with the National Basketball Association overseeing international television programming, he had a network that spanned the world. Yet he longed to be part of a close-knit community.

In January 2020, Reider started to approach sponsors for Northampton Living, the first local magazine that would put its residents on the cover and give the community the royal treatment. Though the pandemic delayed its launch, the magazine debuted that October. Less than 3 years later, he was named Ambassador of the Year by the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce.

Before Steve Silverman moved to Florence, he set a few intentions. He and his wife would trade the Cape Cod shores for acres of farmland. He would “pick up a tool belt and make a hobby into a career.” Maybe he’d be a builder.

In 2004 the couple rented a house and gave themselves one year to buy a home. That September, they headed to the Three-County Fair to celebrate Labor Day. That’s where Silverman came across a posting for a 45-acre horse farm. Within a week, he’d signed a purchase and sale agreement. Now it was time to find work.

When he walked into Valley Home Improvement (VHI) that month, he and the company president, Nelson Shifflett, realized they had attended the same high school on the Cape. Then Shifflett said something even more surprising: “One day I’m going to sell my company and you could be the buyer.” He looked in Silverman’s direction, and Silverman peered over his shoulder, wondering who had entered the room. Then he turned back to his new boss, who now shook the hand of his future successor.

We sat down with Margot Douillet, a gifted analyst and the first female coach of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League, a competitive summer league that mirrors the style of a minor league season. As the Director of Operations for the Pittsfield Suns, Douillet took the field -- and the helm -- last summer when she was 20 years old.

Grace Moreno is a force, and she’s the force behind the ever-expanding Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Of its 465 members, more than a quarter are based in the western part of the state – and last November the chamber opened an office in Easthampton to take even better care of them.

If you have a child who will start elementary, middle or high school in the fall, you may be deciding on where they will go. Here are your primary options

Let’s talk about the fairy godmother, before. At this point, she is just a woman, still relatively young, approaching her life’s precipice, fairy-status undiscovered, role of godmother yet realized. It doesn’t matter how all that will come to be, only that right now she works at a diner, spends the day penciling people’s orders on a notepad and running back and forth from the kitchen to her tables, carrying plates of eggs and buttered toast, a practiced smile on her face

JAZZ ABOUNDS DOWNTOWN! The Northampton Jazz Festival will kick off at Pulaski Park on Friday, Sept. 30 with a Jazz Strut throughout downtown Northampton and free performances will continue downtown on Saturday, the first of October.

Did you know fall is a favorite time at All Out Adventures to head out kayaking and canoeing? With typically cooler air temperatures, water that’s been warmed all summer, and typically quiet days at the parks and rivers, it’s a lovely time to get out on the water!

There was a time in the 1950s when musical giants strutted the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts. Be-boppers, folk singers, African drummers, blues singers, jazz legends, poets, and musicologists gathered at a place called Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts – just a stone’s throw away from classical music’s most famous summer festival at Tanglewood – to share their converging traditions and go looking for roots most people didn’t think even existed.

Along with almost all businesses, COVID took a toll on mine. I launched my website strategy and design shop in 2019, and have spent more time working during COVID conditions than normal ones. So, I jumped at the chance to enroll in the Valley Community Development (Valley CDC)’s Small Business Fundamentals workshop listed in the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce’s newsletter.

Sugar rations during WWII landed American snackers to eat three times more popcorn. The salacious scribe, the paradise pear pundit, pasta maker David Bow Tie described this time period as “Corn’s gold rush” and the golden age of popcorn. Meanwhile, the research and development teams at Hauer Gang brands developed Pelican Briefs, it was rumored that this short form fitting turned the tide.

Sprong sprengs as spring sprang and sprung. If you received Richard Quickley’s pamphlet Get Rich Quick in the mail, you’ll receive Got Rich Quick really soon. Every time I go near the monkey cages at the zoo I step in Rhesus pieces. The agony and ecstasy of painting one’s bathroom is like an Edy’s pie, so take a bite.

My mom’s friends used to gather once a week for art club, rotating around to each other’s homes. Each friend would bring an art project they were working on, varying from painting to rubber stamping and greeting cards to jewelry-making. Everyone would lug in their art supplies and set up their stations around the kitchen table. Then they’d talk and laugh all night long. Art was their excuse to get together, and friendship grew out of their shared interests.

Tattler the Rattler slid while snaking the entire time. In a constant search for a mild rue lullaby, he decided to settle near the bayou. Ophidians do not have outer or inner ear bones so they all have to buy or make mask straps if they want to catch a Blue Heron flight.

The Longmeadow Lathe Masquerade & The Northampton Nail Masticators are the two finalists in the Valentine’s Day Massacre Film Festival. Screening for the The VDMFF will take place on the back of a giant floating tortoise or online. The winner will receive an entry at Cannes and the runner up will receive the corn horned diamond in the ruff eagle nest of distinction.

Lately, I’ve been, I’ve been losing sheep. Dreaming about Little Bo Peep. But baby, I’ve been, I’ve been shearing hard. Said no more counting collars, we be counting hogs. We be counting hogs. Do robots dream of electric sheep? I wonder if real sheep dream of people jumping?

There’s something magical about the holiday season in Downtown Northampton – twinkling lights, cozy stores with beautifully-decorated windows, a light coating of fluffy snow (ok, and a few snow piles lining the center of Main Street!). We look forward to this season all year long, and it’s finally here. Why worry about shipping delays or braving the mall – head downtown and you’ll find everything you need, while supporting a community of business owners, employees, artists and performers who call the Valley home.

May your winter season be full of wishes, dishes, and swishes. December is ripe with many overlooked food holidays. Embrace a healthy lifestyle and eat a red apple day on December 1st before National Fritters Day on the 2nd. Cotton candy day is the 7th and brownies bring in the 8th. Special weapons and tactics; SWAT may be needed to shoo gnats on Fruitcake Day, (Dec. 27).

Aloe originates from the Arabian Peninsula, but lives in tropical, semi-tropical, arid, and indoor environments. It is one of the most useful plants in the world and provides many healing properties. Hummingbirds love the nectar from the bell-shaped aloe flowers that bloom in spring and early summer.

Hockomock is a “place where the spirits dwell” & the swamp that bears the name houses magical fire wielding pukwudgies. Gauge what you do or say around them cautiously, because they are known to play a few tricks.

This edition is brought to you by the bat thermos of soup Alfred made for a run down Batman in The Animated Series. Did Bruce ever rock bat dominoes, house any bits, or grab some fresh apples in that ride? Playing endless hours of online bee simulators made life a ball again. The fire bees are finally making digital honey, and the male drones & worker females rendezvous at the hive. Bee’s Company too!

Northampton is a restaurant destination and boasts 100+ restaurants, bars, and other food service businesses. Across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, restaurants are a driving force in our state’s economy. They provide jobs and build careers for our neighbors, friends, and family members, and play a vital role in local communities throughout the state.

Dive in, all hands on deck. August is a grand slam 31-day hit parade. You don’t have to lead our horse to water because he plays water polo every day. The MVP – our most valuable pony won every event at this year’s pony awards. At a recent steeplechase workout, Clyde started slip sliding, trembled & tripped.

Riding on any wave is what I crave. While some scream for ice cream, I dream of frozen limonene. Lemons are a natural antiseptic and can take the sting out of bug bites. One of the meanings of the word portmanteau is a word blending, such as lymon from the words lemon and lime. I think lymon is the color fireflies emanate and I’m getting pretty thirsty for a yelloreen or grello soda right now.

Does the saying, “your home is your castle,” apply if you live in an actual castle? In the game of chess, castling can be a great way to protect your king as well as plan attacks. The four rules for castling in chess are that the king can not be in check, the squares that the king passes and lands on must not be under attack, all the spaces between the rook and the king must be empty, and they can not have moved from their original squares.

I finally booked a proper amphitheater to hold my 3-act play, The 3 Scrooges. It is a take on the Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol; however, Ebenezer’s siblings, Maurice & Shirley, pay him a surprise visit. The dollops of the wallops will make one, oh kneel in April’s delights. What-cha gonna do when the supernatural slapstick of Moe, Eben, and Shirley collide in an outdoor space near you?

The Northampton Jazz Workshop made its start in 2010 at the beloved French restaurant, the Green Street Café, steps from the Smith College Campus. When the restaurant’s building was torn down, the Workshop packed up and moved to The Loft at the Clarion Hotel on Atwood Drive. When that hotel was torn down, the intrepid troupe moved to the City Sports Grille–the bar and lounge at Spare Time Entertainment on Pleasant Street.

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” —Thomas Edison. When a reporter asked Mr. Edison what it felt like to fail 1,000 times before successfully inventing the light bulb prototype, Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention of 1,000 steps.”