The holiday season is headed straight at us, but if you get your shopping done now, you can find time to rest and relax. We’re here to help you feel like you have it all together.
Baltimore Beat Arts and Culture Editor Teri Henderson put together a gift guide full of interesting and thoughtful items from local businesses that you can buy for your parents, friends, or even yourself.
Henderson also talked to two Baltimore-based entrepreneurs: Jinji Fraser and Darryl Collins. You may have already tried Fraser’s delicious chocolate creations. She ran a stall at Belvedere Square for several years and recently opened a new shop on Greenmount Avenue. Collins runs a bottle shop specializing in non-alcoholic and zero-proof beer, wine, and spirits. Learn all about them here, and then hit them up for your holiday shopping and celebration needs. Photographer Philip Muriel shot photos for both of those stories.
In keeping with the holiday theme of this issue, Dominic Griffin wrote about the 2022 holiday film “A New Diva’s Christmas Carol.” The film stars Ashanti, Vivica A. Fox, Robin Givens, and Eva Marcille. The movie isn’t perfect, but it’s a good time.
“You’ll all be too busy wanting to hug someone to gripe about the screenplay,” Griffin wrote.
Journalist Trinadee Coates wrote about the work local health officials are doing to keep babies safe when they sleep. The team at Baltimore Courtwatch continued our coverage of violence in the Gaza Strip by drawing parallels between Baltimore and Palestine.
“While the military relationship between the U.S. and Israel goes back decades, the specific practice of exchanges between the Israel Defense Forces and local police departments in the U.S. began largely after 9/11,” they wrote.
As always, we have a poem by a participant in the Writers in Baltimore Schools program. This time, it’s Sophie Windt with a piece titled “The Bear.”