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Showcasing your silver collection during the holiday season is a time-honored tradition. Whether you’re the host to a large crowd or plan to bring your signature dish on an heirloom tray, you’ll want to pay attention to these silver care tips—especially during the holidays. Flatware, trays, teas sets, pitchers, or heirloom candlesticks, can all be treasured items you plan to use, and each piece deserves to shine and sparkle on your holiday table....

Holiday treats don’t get much easier than these no-bake bourbon balls, requested by Mary Robinson of Macon, Georgia. They make a large batch, so they’re great for parties or gift-giving. Made with mostly pantry staples, this is a great recipe to have on hand during the holidays when you never know who will stop by. In under an hour, you can have a chocolate and nutty treat that presents like a sophisticated bakery item....

Made of polyester microfiber, the sheets are soft yet durable. They’re also wrinkle-resistant for a smooth, sleek look, and the fitted sheets come with corners that are actually big enough to stay put on mattresses up to 16 inches deep. You can machine wash the bedding in warm water and dry it on a low tumble setting. Just be sure to avoid using chlorine bleach while cleaning. The sheets are ideal for kids’ rooms, first apartments, and anyone looking for a good deal....

Bad news for crab-lovers in Maryland and Virginia. The 2022 dredge survey, done at 1,500 sites in the Chesapeake Bay, found the worst total blue crab numbers since the survey began in 1990. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ 2022 Baywide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey—done in cooperation with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science—estimated that 227 million crabs are living in the estuary, down from 282 million in 2021. The highest estimate was 852 million blue crabs back in 1993....

With spring right around the corner, Dunkin’ is celebrating the season with brand-new menu items. The star of the spring menu is the Chocolate Croissant, an all-butter croissant filled with three chocolate batons and served warm. One bite will transport you to a quaint French café, where you can bask in the gentle spring sun with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Pair your pastry with one of three new coffee drinks....

Earlier this week, Erin and Ben Napier, the stars of HGTV’s Home Town, shared that they are expecting their first baby together later this year. In a candidly honest blog post announcing her pregnancy, Erin shared her fears and hopes about motherhood as well as the sweet name they’ve decided to give their baby girl: Helen. The Mississippi native said her daughter’s name is an ode to her own grandmother. Naming children after family members is a classic Southern tradition, and one that makes choosing a baby’s name all the more significant (and sometimes difficult)....

Jessica Rambo grew up in a military family. Her mother and several of her uncles all served in the armed forces. “Although it wasn’t really the family business, it definitely was something that I was proud [of],” she told Southern Living. “When I was a lost soul trying to figure out what path I wanted, that was the clearest in my mind of what I wanted to do.” But Rambo wasn’t looking for just any type of role, she wanted to be a combat cameraman with the United States Marine Corps....

There’s one thing all Southern women can agree on: There’s power in a good mascara. We review a lot around here, which means we can sound off on the mainstays, the luxury buys, and even the gimmicky (yet, surprisingly effective) varieties without batting an eyelash. In fact, we’ve seen so many mascaras over the years that our staff of beauty editors was getting rather hard to please; the list of nonnegotiables too long....

Hardwood floors are one of the most highly sought-after features in a home. Wall-to-wall carpets simply have a way of making any space look a tad dingy; while there is a right way to do carpets, more often than not they’re relics of decades past. Not only do hardwood floors look sleek and shiny, but they can be much easier to clean than carpeting, which stains oh-so-easily (although we must say, these machine-washable area rugs may have just solved that problem)....

They’re striking—and unmistakable. Delphiniums are towering columns of bright blooms that can reliably add a dose of drama to any landscape. They’re often found in classic English cottage gardens, and their distinctive blooms are great additions to cutting gardens across the U.S. too. While these flowers have developed a reputation for being finicky plantings in the Southern states—they balk at the heat and humidity of our summers—they’re just plain gorgeous, which is why we’ve figured out ways to keep planting them....

There’s plenty of literature about knife sharpening out there—when, where, and how you should go about caring for those expensive, beautiful kitchen tools. But what about your kitchen shears or your office scissors? There are few experiences as unpleasant as trying to cut with a dull pair. Luckily, the fix is easy. Here’s how to sharpen scissors at home. How Often Should You Sharpen Your Scissors? When it comes to sharpening, there’s no standard timetable....

Five decades later, and Loretta Lynn is still going strong. Yesterday, on the 50th anniversary of Coal Miner’s Daughter, the 88-year-old country legend announced the impending release of her 50th studio album, Still Woman Enough. The 13-song collection, due out on March 19, 2021, features collaborations with some of the biggest female names in country music, including Margo Price, Tanya Tucker, Reba McEntire, and Carrie Underwood. “I am just so thankful to have some of my friends join me on my new album....

In a recent episode of Sadie Robertson Huff’s Whoa That’s Good podcast, the former Duck Dynasty star catches up with country crooner and Georgia native, Luke Bryan. Robertson Huff kicks things off by asking the podcast’s signature question: “What is one of the best pieces of advice that you’ve ever been given?” “A piece of advice that has always stuck with me is my dad when I was a little boy he always said ‘do it right the first time and you will have not to go back and do it over again,’” Bryan begins....

Lynn Whitfield has graced our television screens for decades in shows that are woven into the cultural fabric of this country including Hill Street Blues, Heartbeat, and Greenleaf. She’s appeared on the big screen in films such as All Things Fall Apart, The Women, and she won an Emmy Award for her portrayal of Josephine Baker in the 1991 HBO film, The Josephine Baker Story. But there was one thing the Baton Rouge born actress had not done yet–until now....

Who needs professional sports when there’s an epic turtle marathon unfolding? Since 2008, Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) has been hosting the hottest competition on four flippers. The annual Tour de Turtles “migration marathon” follows more than a dozen sea turtles over the course of approximately three months as they travel from their nesting beaches to their foraging grounds. The unwitting competitors swim with the goal of being the first turtle to travel the furthest distance....

A Lady Baltimore cake is among the most elegant and impressive of swoon-worthy Southern layer cakes. It’s three layers of pristine white cake coupled with a boozy dried fruit-and-nut filling and crowned with swirls of fluffy white 7-minute frosting. But it’s not from Baltimore. No, this classic cake hails from Charleston and its origin story lies in fiction. In 1903, author Owen Wister wrote a romantic novel titled Lady Baltimore in which a cake so impresses the narrator that it becomes the focal point of the story set in fictional Kings Port, which bears strong resemblance to Charleston....

I love to bake cakes in the fall, and the cooler temperatures outside make it a little easier to deal with heating the oven. The changing colors, the rich, aromatic spices, and the abundance of fresh apples, pumpkins, and pecans work together to keep me in the kitchen chopping, mixing, stirring, and tasting. As much as I like to experiment with new recipes, I always choose one I know and trust whenever I bake a cake for an event....

I can think of few recipes that sound less appetizing than “tomato pudding.” I love tomatoes and every manner of pudding, but as far as I’m concerned, those two things don’t belong together—or so I thought. There’s a variety of tomato pudding recipes out there, because (as with any old Southern dish) every family has a different version. I followed a recipe with just 5 ingredients. After pouring 3/4 cup of sugar over the contents of a can of tomatoes, I almost gagged....

While your family undoubtedly has their own traditions, you may want to borrow this one from Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks. Long before the pandemic disrupted travel and busy schedules, every Christmas, Yearwood and Brooks would make sure they were home to mark the season with one important holiday tradition with their daughters, August, Allie and Taylor. “The only thing we really do as a family that we have to do is … we decorate the tree together,” Yearwood told Good Morning America back in 2019....

Imagine traveling along on an alpine coaster only to be greeted by a bear and her cubs trying to make their way across the track. That’s exactly what happened to one guest of Anakeesta, a popular outdoor adventure hub and theme park in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The video footage of such an event was originally captured by TikTok user ricktock69—with the unedited video racking up 9.7 million views—and later shared by Knoxville news station WBIR-TV....