Best Ways to Donate in a Pandemic

And because “there’s no substitute for in-person coat drives,” Ms. Amodio said, her charity has come up with creative ways to stage them. Last month, a school in Atlanta held a coat drive during morning drop off. Masked volunteers collected more than 400 coats through rolled-down windows. There is more demand to feed the hungry.…

Jigsaw Puzzle Activity

This has been a long and winding year, but it’s almost at an end. To solve this puzzle, cut out the pieces of the maze and fit them together to make a rectangle, then find your way through the labyrinth to 2020’s finale. Upon your journey, you will encounter a series of images. Use these…

Saunas For Home Use

(Almost Heaven was acquired in 2018 by the Finnish company Harvia, a maker of sauna stoves, among other related items. Mr. Mouw said affably that he was hazed by his new colleagues in Lapland, 50 miles north of the Arctic Circle.) Can’t afford a sauna of your own? Rental is an option. Henning Grentz, 47,…

Stock Tank Pools for Your Backyard

If you happened to find yourself scouring the internet in search of an Intex inflatable pool last spring, only to come up empty-handed, you had company. According to Sabeena Hickman, the president and chief executive of the Pool & Hot Tub Alliance, pool sales skyrocketed as Americans faced a quarantined season at home. Based on…

The Blue Flame of ‘Hotlanta’

When Georgia went blue for Biden last month, some traced it to Stacey Abrams and her nonprofit Fair Fight, whose get-out-the-vote playbook electrified the state. Others cited more college-educated and older suburban voters. And though the election (and the upcoming Senate runoffs on Jan. 5) have focused new eyes on the state, it has long…

How We Passed the Time this Year

Welcome. My colleagues are looking back at the ways culture was upended in 2020, and their reflections are helping me make sense of a year that frequently seemed senseless. James Poniewozik put it best, I think, pointing out that this is the year “everything became TV”: We watched “I May Destroy You” on Netflix, and…

Love Letter: He Had Her at Sourdough

Many extroverts have gone to extreme measures for a social fix during the pandemic. Albertina Coacci, a self-proclaimed people person, turned to daily phone calls with strangers to pass the time while in lockdown in Italy. What started as a harmless habit soon led to an affair of sorts with a man who spoke her…

Magic Shows and Inner Beauty

With the New York charity circuit on hiatus, here is how some philanthropists and society figures are spending their time and resources during the coronavirus crisis. André Leon Talley Age: 72 Occupation: author, fashion journalist Favorite Charity: Housing Works Where have you been sheltering? I’ve been in my house in White Plains. It’s an old…