December 2019 October 2019 December 2019

December Highlights December Birthdays

Worship & Music with Victory Villa Church In astrology, those born between December 1–21 Sunday, December 1st @ 2:00pm are centaur archers of Sagittarius. Archers are The Woodlands Review curious, energetic, and enjoy change, the restless Music with DJ Styles travelers of the zodiac. They are funny and Woodlands Assisted Living * 1320 Windlass Drive Baltimore, MD 21220 * 410‐918‐2139 Monday, December 2nd @ 3:30pm enthusiastic, cherishing freedom as their greatest

treasure. Those born between December 22–31 Trip to Dollar Tree Spinning into the Season are the horned goats of Capricorn. As goats climb Tuesday, December 3rd @ 1:00pm to great heights, Capricorns strive to get to the As the holiday season approaches, children top, using discipline and common sense to find Shady Grove Luncheon gravitate to toy store windows to stare longingly fame, prestige, and money. Wednesday, December 4th @ 11:00am at the wonders on display. Rarely do spinning tops make children’s wish lists anymore, yet these toys Estella Hill December 12th Activities with Roy th are some of the oldest known to human civilization. th Iris Merryman December 17 Wednesday, December 4 @ 3:00pm th A clay top discovered by archaeologists in Iraq’s ancient Robert Carlson December 19 Celebrating December th city of Ur dates back to the 35th BC—that’s Shopping Trip to Walmart Wilma Walters December 20 nd nearly 6,000 years ago! A wooden top dated to 1300 BC th Carol Hale December 22 Friday, December 6 @ 1:00pm was found in King Tut’s tomb. During the medieval era Charles Lehner December 24th Spiritual Literacy Month in , parish tops measuring eight inches high and Kingdom Seekers Clara Hall December 30th weighing two pounds were kept in town squares for play, Sunday, December 8th @ 2:30pm Bingo Month exercise, and competition. Cultures all over the world Restaurant Trip to Rosarios Please join us in wishing these residents have fashioned tops from whatever materials they have th on hand, including fruits, nuts, seeds, and seashells. Tuesday, December 10 @ 1:00pm a very Happy Birthday! Antarctica Day What makes these toys so fascinating and enduring? Music with Russ Hughes December 1 It’s not just their simplicity, but the way they seem to Thursday, December 12th @ 3:30pm defy gravity as if by magic. Christmas Party with Larry Steinacker th Cookie Day Shopping Trip to Target Wednesday, December 25 @ 2:00pm Every spinning top is an experiment in physics. The toys Friday, December 13th @ 1:00pm December 4 Birthday Party with Mr. Charisma remain upright thanks to angular momentum. In fact,

Thursday, December 26th @ 3:00pm precision balanced tops spun perfectly upright would Gene Kettell Dance spin forever if there were no friction between their points th St. Nicholas Day Saturday, December 14 @ 3:30pm Shopping Trip to Dollar Tree and the surface. However, this hasn’t stopped engineers th December 6 Friday, December 27 @ 1:00pm from trying to build a top that could conquer the laws Christmas Banquet Sunday, December 15th @ 12:00noon Music with Larry Scott of physics. Sunday, December 29th @ 2:30pm Poinsettia Day Christmas Celebration with Tim Amann December 12 Traditional tops are still hand-built using a lathe and Sunday, December 15th @ 2:00pm New Year’s Eve Party in Theater a discerning eye. The best of these handmade tops st Tuesday, December 31 @ 2:00pm can spin for several minutes and even hours. New Lunch with Jericka Winter Solstice technologies now allow precise and perfectly balanced

Wednesday, December 18th @ 11:30am December 21 tops to be made on computerized machines using top- of-the-line materials. These tops cost thousands of Music with Lynn Roxy dollars and may spin for hours. One top called LIMBO Thursday, December 19th @ 3:00pm Hanukkah recently broke the world record by spinning for 27 hours, December 22–30 9 minutes, and 24 seconds. How was this feat achieved? Shopping Trip to Ollies Hidden inside the top was a battery, flywheel motor, Friday, December 20th @ 1:00pm motion sensor, and a computer chip designed to monitor Christmas Restaurant Trip to Broadway Diner December 25 the top’s stability and correct the motion of the spin. Tuesday, December 24th @ 11:00am While LIMBO is not technically a top but a gyroscope, it is a demonstration of how far engineers will go to perfect this simple toy in an attempt to defy gravity. December 2019 December 2019

Across and Down Reminder The Season of Sugar and Spice The Magic of the Sahara

You don’t need to be a December is chock full of The city of Douz in southern Tunisia is cruciverbalist, someone skilled The Beautician is holidays celebrating cookies. known as the “gateway to the Sahara” and at solving or creating crossword here every Tuesday The first week of December is considered the most celebrated corner puzzles, to celebrate Crossword at 1:00 pm. Please is Cookie Cutter Week. The of the world’s most famous desert. From Puzzle Day on December 21. On see the front desk if week of December 16–20 is December 20–23, Douz hosts the International that date in 1913, the very first you need services. Cookie Exchange Week. The 4th is Cookie Day, Festival of the Sahara, opening the Sahara’s puzzle appeared in the Sunday the 12th is Gingerbread House Day, and the wonders to those brave enough to make the New York World newspaper. The Alzheimer’s 14th is Gingerbread Decorating Day. No wonder journey. The festival is a celebration of Berber Even the most passionate cruciverbalists might be support group is the December is heralded as “the most wonderful life, those hardy nomads who wander the delighted to discover that the very first puzzle was 3rd Tuesday of every time of the year”! Baking and exchanging sweets desert sands on camelback. Visitors can called a “word-cross.” Weeks after the first “word- month from 5-6 pm. have been winter solstice traditions for hundreds experience Berber music and food, and even cross” appeared, a typesetting error resulted in This meeting is held in our theater on the 3rd of years. take in a camel race or two, but the real magic the puzzle being called a “cross-word,” and it floor. of the festival is the desert itself. The cafés and has been called that ever since. The winter solstice has long been celebrated souks lining the narrow streets of Douz come Please Do Not hang anything on the handrails around the world by many cultures, and food has alive once the sun begins to set. Palm groves No one knows what inspired Arthur Wynne to in the resident’s bathrooms. always been associated with these traditions. It skirt the city, providing shade and the desert’s create the first crossword puzzle. Wynne was was during the Middle Ages that dessert became most important crop: dates. Beyond the palms, born in Liverpool, England, and moved to America For all maintenance issues please fill out the an important part of winter solstice feasts. This the Grand Erg Oriental beckons, a vast field of at age 19, where he worked for newspapers in maintenance book located in the front lobby. was due to an influx of new and exotic ingredients, sand dunes. The most intimate way to explore Pittsburgh and New York City. Word puzzles including spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and black the sand sea is on camelback, and plenty were fairly common in newspapers, but Wynne Please remember when leaving the building pepper, and sweet fruits like dates and apricots. of tours allow you to sleep among the soft, innovated many features of the crossword that with a resident to sign out at the front lobby Wealthy families added these fine new ingredients rippling dunes beneath clear skies spotted still exist today. He created horizontal and vertical and to notify the nursing staff. to their pantries, and their cooks created new and with a million stars. The desert here is so boxes for each letter, and he first used patterns wonderful pastries and cookies. It became a sign otherworldly that it has been the backdrop of great wealth to send friends and rivals gifts of of symmetrical black squares to separate the of four Star Wars movies. Indeed, visitors words into rows and columns. His first puzzle baked sweets. to the Sahara feel as if they have ventured took the shape of a diamond with a hollow Rub-a-Dub-Dub to a distant planet. One of the oldest and most popular cookies center. Numbered clues below corresponded On December 5, skip your was springerle, the anise-flavored cookie that to numbered boxes in the puzzle above, similar worn-out shower routine and Radio City Splendor originated in the German province of Swabia in to today’s crosswords, although the numbering sink into a bath for Bathtub the . Anise was prized as a spice On December 27, 1932, at the system was slightly different. To help new Party Day! Showers suffice and a medicine, often grown in the cloistered height of the Great Depression, puzzlers along, Wynne filled in the first answer if your only objective is to get gardens of monasteries. Springerle is easily Radio City Music Hall opened in with the letters F-U-N. clean, but there’s something indulgent about reclining in a bathtub full of recognized by the elaborate bas-relief pictures New York City. The theater was bubbles. What is more, using bath salts can pressed into the cookies thanks to detailed the pet project of billionaire John D. Crosswords have grown so popular that it’s molds carved into wood or clay. These cookies Rockefeller Jr. He envisioned a easy to forget that they are just over 100 years transform a bath into a therapeutic experience. Balneotherapy, or immersion in mineral-laden were not only delicious, but their pictures told performance venue for the masses, an Art Deco old. Wynne likely never imagined that his puzzle important historical and religious stories. Like masterpiece where rich and poor alike could see would appear in newspapers across the globe water or mud, has been a medical remedy for millennia. Today’s bath salts made from anise, ginger was considered both an exotic the highest-quality entertainment. One year after and spawn helplines where people pay for helpful magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt) or sea salt spice and a medicine. Recipes existed in China opening, Radio City debuted its Christmas clues. There are even annual crossword puzzle replicate the experience. These minerals can as early as the and finally made Spectacular, featuring the high-kicking Rockettes tournaments where the best-of-the-best crossword have remarkable effects of reducing stress, it to Europe during the Middle Ages, but it on its Great Stage. The stage measures over 100 puzzle solvers compete against the clock and relieving aches and pains, reducing skin wasn’t until the that the gingerbread feet long and 60 feet wide, and was constructed each other. Don’t be intimidated or discouraged; irritations, and improving circulation. Add a house became popular. This was thanks to the to resemble a setting sun. Since its opening, over crosswords are offered in a variety of levels, from few candles and some relaxing music, and Brothers Grimm and their story of Hansel and 300 million people have passed through its doors easy to difficult, so on December 21, everyone can your bathroom suddenly transforms into a Gretel discovering a house made entirely of to enjoy movie premieres, stage shows, concerts, enjoy the satisfaction of being a cruciverbalist for world-class spa. candy. These traditions have endured for and more. Radio City Music Hall remains the a day. because they are so delicious. largest indoor theater in the world today.