LOOKING UP: Kyle Hooks - "I have long felt a little resentful about Christmas. It has always felt fake, but that resentment has always been a just feeling, irrational at best. I would justify my feelings with facts, saying, "Well, Jesus wasn’t born in the winter, anyways. It’s a pagan syncretism," or "You know, Jeremiah 10:3-4 actually forbids Christmas trees." (That last one is a actually taken way out of context and isn’t talking about Christmas trees at all, but I liked to use it anyways just to buck the system.) It still bothers me to see the wise men at a nativity scene because they didn’t come to see Jesus until he was nearly two years old and living in a house in Bethlehem."

LOOKING UP: Kyle Hooks - "One of the strangest experiences of my life was sitting down with my wife and deciding together what another person should be called for the rest of her life. Our daughter will be a year old soon, and I’ve been thinking back about her short life and why we called her what we did."