Merry Christmas Eve! As our team takes some time off to spend with friends and family, we’ll be launching the 2024 Best of Nice News series. Each day from tomorrow through New Year’s Eve, you’ll receive a special themed newsletter revisiting some of the top stories from the past year. We hope recalling all the good that has happened in 2024 helps you enter 2025 with a positive mindset. We’ll be back on Jan. 1 with new stories — thanks for being here another year!
Fa La La La La: Centuries-Old Christmas Carols Just Dropped
The Newberry Consort
Mariah Carey may have extra material to work with next holiday season. A collection of newly recovered Christmas carols that date back to the 16th and 17th centuries was recently played for the first time in likely hundreds of years. The new-to-us songs — five of which were discovered in a chest in the Guatemalan highlands and date to between 1562 and 1635 — were revived with the help of musicologist slash sleuth Paul Gustav Feller-Simmons, a doctoral student at Northwestern University. With years of experience digging into centuries-old music under his belt, he patiently pieced together the old sheets (some with damage from worms). He then decoded when and why the pieces were performed and analyzed the manuscripts before converting them into concert-ready editions forthe Chicago-area Newberry Consort to perform in its “A Latin American Christmas” program. “Paul has transcribed all of these to modern notation. We’re very, very grateful to him for making these available to us,” consort director Liza Malamut told WBEZ. Check out the 400-year-old sheet music.
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Inside the American Chestnut Tree’s Comeback Story
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Right there with eggnog and gingerbread, roasted chestnuts are quintessential Christmas staples, perhaps best known for making an appearance in Nat King Cole’s iconic holiday song. But for the past 100 years, the earthy treats in the U.S. have been mostly imported due to a foreign fungus nearly wiping out American giant chestnut trees. That could soon change, though, if scientists have anything to say about it. In a collaboration between the American Chestnut Foundation and Virginia Tech, a team of researchers examinedthe genomes of chestnut treesin hopes of helping them rebound. They discovered that native trees adapt to survive different environments and climates: information that they believe could help restore specific blight-resistant tree families. It turns out the south is likely the most optimal place for them to grow — and therefore, a place to focus conservation work — as this region is “most genetically diverse and it is likely to be the best adapted to the warmer climates of the future,” said Jared Westbrook, the co-author of a paper on these findings published earlier this year. Craving chestnuts now? Check out this list of delectable chestnut creations.
Humanity
Volunteer-Run Effort Transforms an LA Street Into a Twinkly Wonderland
It may not be a white Christmas in Los Angeles, but in one pocket of the county, it’s certainly a bright one. In Altadena, a street transforms into an enchanted wonderland known as “Christmas Tree Lane,” where colorful lights are strung from 135 deodar cedars. The twinkly tradition has been going on for 104 years, with credit belonging to the cohort of volunteers who make the magic come to life. “What we’re doing is more for the history,” Derek Nowak, a 22-year-old who’s been volunteering since he was 8, told the Los Angeles Times. “This is something special for the identity of the community. It makes us unique, in a way.” The team spends around 10 weekends getting the lights set up for the annual Christmas Tree Lane lighting ceremony (Managing Editor Natalie Stone attended this year and can confirm it’s magical). When asked why they devote so much effort to the display, high school senior Hannah Skidmore said: “I guess it’s because it makes things better.” Enough said! See the festive street and meet more of the people who make it come to life.
In Other News
To cool down construction crews, students created a wearable that provides airflow to the head and neck (read more)
How old are Saturn’s rings? Potentially a lot older than some scientists originally thought (read more)
Once nearly extinct, a “cheeky and charismatic lizard” species has seen its numbers grow 16 times over in six years (read more)
The number of women in electrical trades in Australia is up 65% since 2020(read more)
Scientists are developing a heat-resistant potatothat retains the plant’s nutritional content (read more)
Inspiring Story
The ripple effect of kindness
As a young adult, Larry Steward was the recipient of a small act of kindness: a diner meal paid for when he had nothing. Once he made money of his own, he began paying it forward and ended up giving away $1.4 million as a “Secret Santa” over his lifetime. Now, nearly two decades after his death, Steward’s legacy lives on in the Society of Secret Santas — read more of the touching story.
Photo of the Day
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Chris Willott (NRC-Canada), Lamiya Mowla (Wellesley College), Kartheik Iyer (Columbia)
This image marks the first from the James Webb Space Telescope that shows what our galaxy looked like when it was forming. Perhaps more importantly for today, though, it’s quite festive in its resemblance to holiday lights when you zoom in. “I just love the sparkle galaxy with its Christmas lights shining, as it was when the Universe was just 600 million years old,” Catherine Heymans, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, told the BBC.
Last-Minute Gifting Made Easy With Cratejoy
Looking for last-minute gift ideas? Meet Cratejoy — your one-stop shop for thoughtful holiday gifting. With its curated holiday collections and festive gift boxes, Cratejoy has something for everyone on your list: wellness enthusiasts, snack lovers, crafty folks, at-home mixologists, and more. The season will be extra memorable with a gift from Cratejoy.
“The new year is a good time to be forward-thinking about who you want to be; but it’s also a great time to look back at what you’re ready to let go of.”
