Month: December 2016

Christmas and Hanukkah are both less than two weeks away. Between shopping for presents, tackling last-minute work deadlines, and preparing for out-of-town guests, you’ll likely need extra caffeine to check all the items off your holiday to-do list. Luckily, Dunkin’ Donuts has your back. As Travel + Leisure reports, select DD locations across the U.S. will be giving away free medium hot coffees on certain days throughout December.

The promotion began today, and runs until Friday, December 23. The first 500 guests to stop at the participating locations each day will receive a complimentary beverage. In the spirit of seasonal generosity, the chain also plans to donate $1000 to local children’s charities in each city serving free coffee.

Not all store locations have been finalized just yet, but here’s an itinerary of cities where customers can get their caffeine fix for free. For a full, updated list of restaurants, check back with the Dunkin’ Donuts blog. (Sorry, Chicago residents, you likely missed your chance, as your local DD giveaway took place today.)

Tuesday, December 13: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Cincinnati, Ohio

Wednesday, December 14: Springfield, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; Nashville, Tennessee

Thursday, December 15: Hartford, Connecticut; Nashville, Tennessee

Monday, December 19: Baltimore, Maryland

Tuesday, December 20: Boston, Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.

Wednesday, December 21: Providence, Rhode Island

Thursday, December 22: Metro New York; Burlington, Vermont

[h/t Travel + Leisure]

The human body is an amazing thing. For each one of us, it’s the most intimate object we know. And yet most of us don’t know enough about it: its features, functions, quirks, and mysteries. Our series The Body explores human anatomy part by part. Think of it as a mini digital encyclopedia with a dose of wow.

Your toes are possibly the most underappreciated, yet hard-working parts of your body. Though you may give little thought to them until you stub one stumbling out of bed in the night, these facts about your big toe might surprise you.

1. THE BIG TOE CARRIES THE GREATEST LOAD.

Each time you take a step, your foot rolls forward, shifting your body weight onto the ball of the foot as you prepare to push off into your next step. For most people, this means your big toe bears the load of your weight as you push off. Considering how many steps you take in a day, it’s no wonder people often experience pain in this toe.

2. TOE PROSTHETICS DATE BACK TO THE EGYPTIANS.

 
Humans have been figuring out ways to work around faulty toes for centuries. Researchers at Manchester University’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology found a wood and leather prosthetic of a big toe on the mummified foot of a 50- to 60-year-old woman who had undergone a toe amputation. Dating to the first millennium BCE, it’s known as “the Cairo Toe.”

3. YOUR BIG TOE HAS ONLY TWO BONES.

Despite being the biggest toe on the foot, the big toe only consists of two phalanges (or toe bones), the distal and proximal. Your other toes have three bones, but most of your big toe is made up of flesh and muscle.

4. YOUR BIG TOE AND GENITALS ARE NEIGHBORS … IN YOUR BRAIN.

The somatosensory cortex of your brain receives sensory information from all over the body. The part of the cortex that receives input from your feet happens to adjacent to the area that receives information from your genitals.

5. THIS PROXIMITY MIGHT EXPLAIN FOOT FETISHES.

Vilayanur Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego theorizes that foot fetishes could possibly result from a cross-wiring in the brain between the foot and the genital sensory centers.

6. GOUT OFTEN BEGINS IN THE BIG TOE.

 
The disease, a form of arthritis where sharp uric acid crystals build up in the body, frequently appears first as pain and swelling in the big toes, though researchers aren’t entirely sure why this is. Though long known as the “disease of kings” because it afflicted those with access to rich food and drink, gout is increasingly common among us, er, commoners.

7. THERE’S A REASON STUBBING YOUR TOE HURTS SO &!@$# MUCH.

Toes are loaded with numerous nerve-ending receptors called nociceptors that are highly sensitive to actual and potential tissue damage. “When you stub your toe, you’re massively stimulating a bunch of these nerve fibers at the same time. Those signals integrate in your spinal cord, which in turn relays that information to your brain. “It’s just a really big input,” Allan Basbaum, chair of UCSF’s Department of Anatomy, told WIRED. “The brain reads that, and it hurts like hell.”

8. THE BIG TOE SEPARATES HUMANS FROM APES.

Recently scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa determined that the base of the big toe, known as the hallux, is what makes it possible for humans to walk and run upright. They concluded that in other living apes, “the big toe is more thumb-like in facilitating grasping capabilities,” such as tree-climbing behaviors. In other words, our big toes demonstrate that humans are uniquely adapted to standing, walking, and running upright on two legs.

9. SURGEONS CAN MAKE THUMBS OUT OF BIG TOES …

It’s much easier to live without a big toe than it is a thumb. That’s why surgeons have begun to master a procedure called a toe-to-thumb transfer in which they replace injured or severed thumbs with big toes. While it sounds gruesome, it’s a life-changing operation that can significantly improve people’s quality of life, and ability to grip things again. They sometimes use other toes as well (warning: graphic images).

10. … AND LOSING YOUR BIG TOE WON’T STOP YOU FROM GETTING AROUND.

While your gait may become uneven, losing a big toe—or even two—won’t prevent you from running, walking, or dancing. It will take some getting used to, but your feet are remarkably adaptable even without big toes.

Today, Christmas seems as American as apple pie, but the country’s original settlers detested the holiday. Religious pilgrims who arrived in North America in the early 17th century demanded that citizens work on December 25 and shut down any merrymaking—and they eventually outlawed Christmas altogether.

Why were these New Englanders such grinches? For one thing, they disliked the celebration of Christmas—which they nicknamed “Foolstide”—because they disliked celebration in general. Puritans were a hard-working lot and pointed out that besides the Sabbath, the Bible said nothing about resting any other days, the birth date of Jesus of Nazareth included.

Beyond that, the Bible said nothing about which day Christ was born. (As historian Stephen Nissenbaum explains, “Puritans were fond of saying that if God had intended for the anniversary of the Nativity to be observed, He would surely have given some indication as to when that anniversary occurred.”) December 25 was just like any other day to Christians until the 4th century, when Pope Julius I recast the Roman Saturnalia festival into a Christian celebration. Soon holly, candles, and other midwinter pagan elements transitioned into Christmas trappings. New England leaders expected their citizens to follow the Bible, not the Pope.

For example, on Christmas Day, 1621, Plymouth Governor William Bradford came across a group of merrymakers playing “stoole-ball”—a sort of colonial version of baseball—and demanded the lot of them get back to work. Eventually, in 1659, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed a law prohibiting Christmas celebration altogether. It stated that in order to prevent “disorders … to the great dishonor of God and offense of others,” anyone found celebrating the holiday “either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way,” would be fined five shillings.

While this anti-Christmas ruling would be the law of the land for decades, following the restoration of Charles II as ruler of England, the pro-Christmas Crown’s influence soon waxed in the colonies. In 1681, laws forbidding the holiday were repealed (though staunch Puritans continued to fight against Christmas celebration for decades more). In 1686, the newly appointed royalist governor of the Dominion of New England, Edmund Andros, closed shops on Christmas Day and sponsored a holiday service—though local protests made it necessary that he be accompanied there by troops.

Protests of Christmas celebrations continued, but shifted more from protesting the celebration of the holiday at all to the manner in which it was celebrated. Christmas partying had long been characterized by overindulging in booze and food, taking to the streets playing clamorous music, rowdy singing, and demanding alms. This was a holdover from the post-harvest season when little work was left to be done and much was available to drink and eat. It was a ritualized disorder developed over centuries before being adopted and adapted by the church, and the whole thing revolted the rigid Puritans.

Boston minister Cotton Mather preached to his congregation in 1712 about how “[T]he Feast of Christ’s Nativity is spent in Reveling, Dicing, Carding, Masking, and in all Licentious Liberty … by Mad Mirth, by long Eating, by hard Drinking, by lewd Gaming, by rude Reveling.” Around the same time, however, Anglican celebrations in the colonies “began to attract more Christmas-keepers, despite the scorn and hostile preaching of the Puritan-minded,” writes historian Gerry Bowler in his new book, Christmas in the Crosshairs.

This debate over how to celebrate Christmas would continue into the next century and wouldn’t be resolved until a group of writers, poets, and intellectuals—men like New-York Historical Society cofounder John Pintard and “A Visit from St. Nicholas” poet Clement Clarke Moore—helped to move the holiday’s celebration from the streets into the home. But the merits of celebrating the day of Christ’s birth would not be widely called into question in the U.S. again.

In 1836, Alabama became the first state to declare it a public holiday, and by 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant designated it a federal holiday, partly as an effort to heal the rift between North and South following the Civil War. By then there was no turning back. In the battle between puritanism and Christmas celebration, the latter won a decisive victory.

Once upon a time, you could hang up a string of lights and call your house decorated for the merriest season. But these days, LEDs, computerized Christmas lights, and projection lights have added new dimensions to decorating—and people are creating bigger and better light shows with each passing holiday season.

1. SARAJEVO 12/24

Robert Pechous of Wheaton, Illinois, synchronized more than 35,000 Christmas lights by computer to create this lovely display in 2013. (The video features just one song—Trans Siberian Orchestra’s “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24″—but the show had three songs total.) Pechous expands the light show every year, raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association in honor of his young cousin, who has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

2. DUELING JINGLE BELLS

The Brown family of Stafford, Virginia, staged a Christmas light show from 2008 to 2013 to benefit the Fredericksburg Area Food Bank. In 2012, they got a little silly and slipped a novelty song in among the Christmas Carols. You can see their other selections on YouTube.

3. TECHNO MIX

It’s a Christmas rave! This home went techno for Christmas in 2011. We don’t know where the home is located, or the identity of the people who so joyfully decked it out, but they’ve been at it for a while: You can see their other displays here.

4. MUSIC BOX DANCER

Victor Johnson of Paxton, Illinois, used 140,000 lights on his home to create this display in 2013. The music was broadcast on an FM channel so that those driving by could hear it without disturbing the neighbors. You can see more of his Christmas displays over the years at Lighting Up Paxton.

5. CHRISTMAS CAN-CAN

Tom BetGeorge of Tracy, California, is a legend among Christmas light fans. Every year, his meticulous light display helps to raise funds for local charities, and in 2013, the display included the hilarious “Christmas Can-Can” by Straight No Chaser. The 2016 show will still feature his popular Star Wars sequence, in addition to Harry Potter music and, according to BetGeorge’s Facebook page, a “to-scale computer-lighted model of Hogwart’s [sic] castle.” The show kicks off December 16.

6. LET IT GO

A family in Texas, which goes by ListenToOurLights, syncs many songs to their lights every year, and in 2014, the blue lights lent themselves well to the songs of the Disney movie Frozen. You can see the lights dance to other songs in this playlist. The cactus is a family tradition that acts as their signature.

7. AMAZING GRACE

Richard Holdman of Pleasant Grove, Utah, began programming his Christmas lights in 2006. They grew every year, and in 2009, the town was treated to the sequence you see here. A donation box raised $40,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation that year. Holdman no longer puts on a show at his home, but he started a company, Holdman Lighting, and now decorates homes all over the country.

8. PURPLE RAIN

Mike Staudt of Chaska, Minnesota, puts on an annual lights show called Lights on Pascolo. That’s not far from Prince’s home, Paisley Park, so this year’s show includes a tribute to the artist, complete with purple lights. You can see the full 2016 show here. Donations from those who enjoy the show this year will go to Ronald McDonald house charities.

9. STAR WARS/UPTOWN FUNK

In Auckland, New Zealand, where Christmas falls in the middle of summer, Logan Carpenter mixed his own music and programmed lights to match. Take a tour of Carpenter’s yard to see the variety of Christmas decorations and lights.

10. EL PASO CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

Fred and Maria Loya of El Paso, Texas, won the The Great Christmas Light Fight in 2014. Their home display has only grown from there. This is their light show for 2016, featuring 450,000 lights.

11. JOLLY’S DEPARTMENT STORE

The new trend in Christmas lights is projection. You can project lights on your house for very little cost, but the most amazing displays use computerized projection mapping. This display on the front of Jolly’s Department Store in Bath, UK, in 2014 shows the possibilities of this technology.

12. WESTERN MALL

In 2006, Joe Noe of Crooks, South Dakota, staged a computerized light show at his home, and the show grew so much every year that it had to eventually be moved to the Western Mall in Sioux Falls. The video above shows the 2011 display. In those years, the light display raised over $225,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There isn’t a display this year, but organizers hope it will return in 2017.

13. DUBSTEP AT THE ZOO

Matt and Melissa Johnson of San Antonio, Texas, started doing computerized Christmas lights in 2013 at their home, and within a couple of years they were featured on The Great Christmas Light Fight. The display went over so well that Matt started his own lighting business, which was brought aboard to put on a light show at the San Antonio Zoo. See more of the Johnson Family Light Show at their website.

14. WALT DISNEY WORLD

Two years ago, Walt Disney World in Orlando unveiled a show called “A Frozen Holiday Wish,” centered around the movie Frozen. The show leads up to the lighting of Cinderella’s Castle with projected Christmas lights every evening during the season. The actual lighting begins six minutes into the video.