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Today is a very special day for my family because it would have been my mom's 70th birthday. There is no doubt we miss her, but we are able to connect with her through a few favorite recipes. This week, I pay a special tribute to my mom and share what is quite possibly her most widely beloved recipe and how it has evolved.

It's the morning after Christmas and like most mornings, I'm sipping coffee and reading the paper. What makes this morning different than the other 364 is that lingering fragments of gift wrap are still visible and a number of half-eaten candy canes remain. The dog is having a field day locating snacks the grandkids left behind.

It’s the holidays and for most of us that means food. Weird food. Oh, fine, turkey, ham, even green bean casserole aren’t that weird. But there are some things we consume around the holidays that frankly make me question the taste buds of people in the South Valley and all over America.

Morgan Hill artist Susan Graeser started out painting store windows with Christmas designs. As she became more popular, she began to paint designs for a variety of holidays, including Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July and Halloween.

I'm sure most of us are familiar with them: men, women, even children, neatly dressed, often carrying a briefcase or satchel full of literature. They ring doorbells and politely offer to share the Word of God with the residents who answer.

With the holiday season upon us, December is a month of celebrations and spending time with friends and loved ones. However, it is also a time to remember how much we value those who are closest to us.

SAN JOSE – Brent Burns buried a one-timer inside the left post with 37.5 seconds left in overtime to lift the San Jose Sharks past the St Louis Blues 3-2 Saturday night.San Jose completed a 5-0 homestand by erasing a 2-1 deficit in the final 21 seconds of regulation.Burns recorded his 10th goal of the season off a feed from Joe Pavelski. The Sharks went on a power play with 1:03 left in the extra session when Pavelski was tripped by Blues winger Alexander Steen.Joe Thornton’s hustle to gain control of a loose puck in the Blues zone in the final 30 seconds of the third period led to the equalizer.Coach Todd McLellan pulled goaltender Atti Niemi with less than two minutes to play. The Blues had control of the puck for 15 seconds behind the San Jose net before Melker Karlsson was able to pull the puck toward the St. Louis end. Thornton burst through the neutral zone, jammed the puck away from a Blues forward and sent the puck across the ice. Marc-Edouard Vlasic, coming off the bench, was in stride as he whistled a low shot from the top of the left circle past a screened goaltender Jake Allen.“I figured somebody was going to be there,” explained Thornton of his blind pass that set up Vlasic’s fourth goal of the season.San Jose, with nine wins in the past 10 games, visits Anaheim Tuesday and Los Angeles Saturday before a home date with Vancouver Tuesday Dec. 30.St. Louis mounted an 8-2 edge in shots on net in a scoreless first period. The Sharks came up with the first goal before the visitors built a 2-1 edge entering the second intermission.Andrew Desjardins earned his second goal of the season 10:47 into the second period. Justin Braun used the sideboards to find Desjardins in stride entering the Blues zone. Desjardins reached the bottom of the left circle before his shot dipped between Allen’s body and right arm.St. Louis drew even at the 14:29 mark when Patrick Berglund turned a rebound of an Alex Petrangelo shot from the high slot into his fourth goal of the season.Steve Ott raced past the San Jose defense for a breakaway goal at the 17:21 mark. Ott’s first goal of the year ended a 58-game goalless streak.“It was a big win for us,” said McLellan, noting that the Sharks limited the Blues to 12 shots over the final two periods plus overtime.NOTES: San Jose plays the Blues two more times within the next eight games to complete the season series…SAP Center drew a sold-out crowd of 17,562, the fifth full house of the season…Mirco Mueller, Chris Tierney and Matt Irwin were the Sharks’ healthy scratches…San Jose has 42 points in second place in the Pacific Division.

Here at the height of the Christmas season, we’ve kicked it into overdrive. Since Thanksgiving, we’ve been decorating and organizing, gift-finding and wrapping, crafting and baking. House lights are up, stockings are hung, Christmas trees sparkle with magic, as if delivered by Santa himself. In the background we envision an appropriate accompaniment to our colossal efforts: the Boston Pops Orchestra’s playing of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Londoners know, and visitors find, that the city is unlike any other capital in the world. London projects the whole essence of Britain. The creation of London at her birth--as an urban settlement dating back to Roman times--tells a story all its own and perhaps a hint of how this grand city of today gathered the strength to survive and become one of the leading cities in the world.

SAN JOSE – A 2-0 victory over the visiting Nashville Predators lifted the San Jose Sharks into sixth place in the competitive Western Conference Saturday night.