Claire Hopple

Good news: Festival season is upon us. Allow yourself to rock with the best of them by compiling your own crucial folk festival kit with these must-have items.

Though most associate this blessed occasion with Frank Costanza boisterously shouting “A Festivus for the rest of us!” and attempting to wrestle his own son to the ground, Festivus has an even richer history than you might imagine. The list of Festivus supporters is continually growing and the event’s practices are evolving at a rapid clip.

Nostalgia is actually considered a valuable copoing mechanism for depression, anxiety, and especially grief. Plus, not only does it counteract anxious feelings, it can actually make you more hopeful about the future. No wonder a higher occurrence of nostalgic feelings are found in the most resilient people.

Nothing makes me get my Grinch on faster than glitter-bombed Christmas wrapping and nasally voices ringing in my eardrums at every store.

You don’t need to be diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder to experience the negative effects of the colder, darker days. Every year, it’s like we’re all shocked about just how early it can get dark, wondering where the sun went as if we’ve never gone through winter before. To ease into this time of year and not get wiped out by the crueler side of Mother Nature, here are a few tactics to try.

Sure, happiness is too abstract a concept to measure perfectly, and it’s safe to say that a serious case of the Mondays can find you no matter what poorly drawn boundaries you’ve planted yourself within. Still, an environment can make a significant impact on your overall mood.

California tooks its post-election protests to a very intense, very new level recently.

You mention wanting to feast on a sweet stack of pancakes for Sunday brunch and the next time you open Instagram, there’s an IHOP ad star

Strange, that bad mood of yours won’t disintegrate with someone shaking you and shouting “Snap out of it!” That alllllways does the trick.

In case you haven’t noticed, food elitism did not go out with the abolishment of the food pyramid. But before you call your broccoli a power-hungry classist, make sure you know your basic facts.