This column was prompted by the sale of Oak Court on the courthouse steps, and by last week’s announcement of the pandas leaving Memphis. But this isn’t about loss. This is about redemption. This is about celebration.

“Infrastructure issues in Memphis are a big, expensive problem. However, even though it’s just a band-aid, developing a more effective communication system is a small step that MLGW can take to ensure customers are informed and safe.”

“What is it that brings the unwavering connection to a dog over such a relatively short period of time? Is it the loyalty? Their companionship? Their love?”

“Brothers and sisters are not impressed by our accolades and titles, but they love that we hold their histories just as they hold ours. And we still like to connect on Christmas.”

“Four generations of two families over five decades have spent Christmas Eve with us around this table.”

The senior rabbi of the largest synagogue in Tennessee on how “religious and nationalist zealots of all faiths can wreck any country, as we all know – and Israel is on the brink of disenfranchising the majority of the Jewish people in the Diaspora.”

For the sake of all of us who believe cleanliness is indeed next to godliness, let’s make a commitment in the new year to support the cleanup efforts in Memphis.

“If we adopted a new approach to vacant land, we could actually reduce the amount of work that is required — and money that is spent — by our city as it intervenes and attempts to maintain health and safety at abandoned land.”

“For more than two years, our heroic clinicians have risked their safety while treating patients on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities large and small.”

“I believe this old Christmas story is true for lots of reasons. But when I’m in a pinch and can’t think of any of those, I look to Hollywood to remind me of the power in the name that’s behind everything good in my life.”

The island you see across from Greenbelt Park and Harbor Town and Shelby Forest is called the Loosahatchie Bar, and all of it — bigger than all of Mud Island and some of Downtown together — is in Shelby County.

“Ms. Echols’ perspective may be evoking these sorts of questions, causing readers to rethink their assumptions, perhaps rethink the commonly assumed absence of God.”

Barring some technicality in the law, there is nothing complicated about whether there is a link between Alicia Franklin’s rape and Eliza Fletcher’s murder.

This month’s Grizzlies Mailbag includes thoughts on Jaren Jackson Jr.’s chances to be named Defensive Player of the Year and his declining fouls, along with Chris’ favorite Christmas movies.

“It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I realized nothing that can be wrapped will fully satisfy. And if the stuff in the boxes — the stuff I flew up and down Poplar looking so frantically for — won’t satisfy, what will?”

“Stax history is about the music but also about the integration and racial healing in Memphis and the nation.”

“Far too many college students — and older adults, for that matter — know little, if anything, about the Court, its history, its unfettered power, who’s on it and how they got there.”

Stewart perhaps cut an unlikely figure for the founder of a label that became synonymous with Southern soul music, creating stars such as Otis Redding and Isaac Hayes amid releasing roughly 800 singles and 300 albums in an initial span of fewer than 20 years.

“My saying ‘Merry Christmas’ makes some people see me as a conservative, Republican, older, evangelical Southerner. Most of those judgments don’t actually describe who I am.”

“Each of us has a particular history, personality, community, set of strengths and weaknesses – and most importantly – heart full of loves. All of these are useful as we sort out how we might fit into Memphis.”

The Identity Theft Resource Center recommends that data breach notices explicitly recommend that victims freeze their credit and that credit reporting agencies create a common system for people to do so.

“Support Chris Reyes and his quest for a two-year lease of 15,000 square feet inside the Coliseum so he can expand and build his incredible interactive playground.”