Today's Features

Now that we are in December, everyone’s thoughts turn toward the holidays. Each year, I like to pass along the following tips and information about the most popular plant of the holiday season, the poinsettia.
Traditional red and green colors are well represented in the flowers available for the holidays. Poinsettias, the most popular and spectacular holiday flowers, can combine both these colors.

Dear Savvy Senior,
Can Medicare help me quit smoking? I just turned 65, and would like to quit but need some help.
Coughing Connie

Dear Connie,
Yes, Medicare actually covers up to eight face-to-face counseling sessions a year to help beneficiaries quit smoking. And, if you have a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, certain smoking-cessation medications are covered too. Here are some other tips that can help you kick the habit.

A reading from Matt 25:23-30
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“Then the man who had received the one talent came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

Did you know that the cranberry used to be called the “cranberry?” When the colonists first learned of this berry from their American Indian hosts in the New World they thought the blooms of the native shrub looked like the long neck and bill of the crane. Eventually, as language goes, it was shortened to cranberry.