Craig Ruvere

"That's what Christmas memories are made from, they're not planned, they're not scheduled, nobody puts them in their blackberry, they just happen." – Deck the Halls (Movie, 2006) My grandmother lived on the first floor of a modest two-family home. The rooms were not large, the décor was somewhat dated, and storage was always an issue, especially for a woman notorious for saving everything.  Her first-floor apartment always felt warm, safe, and welcoming for a little boy who spent countless hours in his grandmother's company. Widowed in her early 50s, I became a loyal companion for my grandmother, filling in some of the silence with endless chatter, constant questions, and hearty laughter, which seemed to lessen our loneliness for very different reasons. Hers, due to the loss of my grandfather and me,…

Braggers. Also known as the know-it-all, windbag, show-off, and blowhard is a personality type many of us are all too familiar with, sometimes intimately. From co-workers to friends to family members to spouses, they are easily identified in social situations by more modest members of society, often eliciting eye rolls, head shaking, and complaining to other modest members who get it. Typing "what does bragging mean" into Google's search field provides the following definition: "excessively proud and boastful talk about one's achievements or possessions."  Braggers also monopolize the conversation to steer the dialogue toward themselves as though they were reciting a monologue on Broadway.  They often think they have all the answers to every question and rarely entertain anyone who dares to contradict them.  They have little to no compassion…