Until January of this year, I had never been to Las Vegas, for obvious reasons. The “Sin City” marketing campaign never appealed to me, because despite the claim that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” I knew that’s never really been true.

For anyone not living near a ski resort, this is the worst time of year. Christmas is by now a distant memory, except for some mocking reminders that arrive in the mail and are tossed in a pile of dread. New Year’s resolutions have been abandoned at a rate rivaling 50 percent of marriages. And football has forsaken us again for many long months.

The doldrums are abounding (if, indeed, doldrums possess enough energy to bound). Although it’s truly a bleak time, it’s also brimming with potential! The short, dark days of winter, unlike any other time of year, afford us the ideal opportunity to indulge in and cherish the most basic and exquisite of all human pleasures: coziness.

My twin brother, who is much cooler than I am and lives in Washington, D.C., rolled into the Pennsylvania Wilds, our native land, for a visit recently. There, he offered me the chance to drive his brand-new BMW X1 — a luxury, subcompact, crossover “Sport Activity Vehicle.”

The little thing was qick and responsive, so much so that forceful habits formed from driving less state-of-the-art vehicles (read: old) made my driving jerky at first. The front cabin felt wide open with barely-there window pillars. The seats were roomy and comfortable. And once I got used to the light-touch steering and ultra grippy brakes, driving the X1 was pleasant.

With Christmas right around the corner, the supply chain crisis, and what or whom to blame for it, is a hot topic this season.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal recently published a pair of articles about a purported nationwide shortage of truck drivers causing delivery delays. According to Business Insider, however, the reports of a driver shortage are “overblown.” Time, too, rebutted the claims with a column declaring that “The Truck Driver Shortage Doesn’t Exist.”

They got him! Another prominent white male called out by the mainstream media for being racist has had his career destroyed, tossed down the memory hole, never to drawl about beer, trucks, or girls ever again!

Or did they? In January 2021, the 28-year-old, mullet-rocking, cutoff flannel shirt-wearing, small-town Tennessee country music star Morgan Wallen arrived home late at night (or early in the morning?) with his friends and yelled by means of farewell to one of them, “Take care of this p****-ass mother******  — Take care of this p****-ass n*****.”

As our nation navigates a “return to normalcy” in a post-Covid world, one return most workers won’t be making is to the office. And as an estimated 40.7 million American professionals plan to be working fully remotely within the next five years, expect the great political divide to widen as liberals and conservatives move farther apart, both ideologically and physically.

The number of Americans who believe in God has reached an all-time low, according to a Gallup survey that’s been tracking our nation’s “values and beliefs” since 1944.

For a God fearin’ woman such as myself, it’s a disheartening statistic. But we are told never to abandon hope, and recent events — the Supreme Court rulings against abortion and in favor of prayer, a million swing voters switching their registrations to Republican, Keeping Up with the Kardashians finally airing its last season — betoken a more God-centered future.

America is enduring a mental health crisis, and you need go no farther than your local Barnes & Noble bookstore to see evidence.

For Christmas this year, Santa Claus brought me the most splendid Maine Mountain Parka from L.L. Bean, rife with thoughtful details and flawless construction from hood to hem.

There’s a perplexing debate buzzing online about where babies come from, and liberals are highlighting the fundamentally warped way they view human life and relationships.

It’s a cloudless spring day, made for a country drive. Chartreuse trees explode with pollen and glow to near neon. I wind past pastures and stone and brick farmhouses and amiable old barns that could set the scene of a Beatrix Potter story, elatedly adding to the hum of provincial enterprise by perfecting my rev-matching skills over the rolling hills and 8mph switchbacks that mark PA-74.