I was caught flat-footed last year when my oldest daughter began questioning the myriad Santa spottings of the Christmas season.

Santa’s peripatetic ways just didn’t compute.

Cruising up Utah Mountain Road outside Maggie Valley, one begins to get the feeling if they drove any further up the hill their vehicle might just disappear off the face of the earth. 

Editor’s Note: After receiving a heartfelt letter in the mail recently from an inmate at a North Carolina correctional facility, Garret decided to write back. Here is his response.

Dear A***,

First off, thank you from the bottom of my heart for the letter you sent. It was filled with such kind words. I often wonder myself if anyone actually reads what I put out there, if my words find themselves in the hands of those looking for something that day, whatever that something might be. 

Dear Pottery Barn photographers,

Please consider hiring a consultant who actually has kids before you shoot your next product magazine. Otherwise, your catalogs will be reclassified and shelved in the comedy section. 

From, Been-there-done-that-and-it-sure-didn’t-look-like-that.

Exiting your vehicle at Cataloochee Ranch in Maggie Valley, a cold, late fall wind hits you in the face like a frying pan. Standing atop the 5,000-foot mountain retreat, the vastness and endless beauty of Western North Carolina lies below. Heading towards the main building, you reach for the doorknob and enter eagerly. Soon, your body, mind and soul thaw to the sounds of friends, strangers and old-time string music.

“It’s just a different feeling up here; everybody is excited to be part of this,” said Billie Smith, event planner at Cataloochee. “We really open our arms to local musicians and folks from everywhere to come and join in.”

My ears are still ringing.

From Nov. 1-5, I went and saw nine bands. Yep, that’s nine acts in the matter of five days. It was a musical odyssey, to say the least. If there ever were evidence of my obsession for sound and performance, ideal for my mother to give me that signature puzzled look, you’d find it following me around these last several days. 

I don’t buy the theory that texting has fueled an explosion in writing among kids.

The claim is texting is like a “gateway drug.” Kids who normally wouldn’t read or write very much now do so prolifically, albeit in truncated words and cryptic acronyms. But any writing is better than no writing — the notion goes — and once hooked there’s no holding back the inner reader and writer within.

“I can’t sing.” 

“Nobody wants to hear my voice.” 

“I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.” 

They’re recognizable refrains, the shield of the perceived non-musical whenever the Christmas carolers come around or it’s time for someone to jump-start a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” 

Pizza. French fry.

Those were the initial instructions I was given the first time I went skiing. I must’ve been around four or five years old. Growing up in the Champlain Valley, surrounded by the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont, there were innumerable opportunities to hit the slopes and make the most of an unknown weekend.

If you can eek out the time for a trip to Asheville, here’s a great excursion for the last lingering weeks of fall sunshine before winter puts a damper on outside activities.

Giant LEGO sculptures have put down roots on the grounds of the N.C. Arboretum. An 8-foot tall hummingbird, a 5-foot tall butterfly, a bison, a dragonfly — 27 sculptures in all, made from 500,000 LEGO pieces.