December 2023

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Features

Homes on the Range

Ever dream of owning a Maine ski retreat? Draw inspiration from four diverse mountain dwellings with charm and gear-storage galore — and style as refreshing as a bluebird day.

By Sara Anne Donnelly and Sarah Stebbins

Holiday Fish-tivities

We asked four Maine chefs to share seafood recipes fit for a family feast, using underappreciated Gulf of Maine groundfish. The results are hearty and delicious — and fortifying for local fisheries too.

By Alexandra Hall

Christmas in Maine

Almost 90 years ago, with prose as crisp as a cold winter night and sentiments as sweet as steamy apple pudding, the Pulitzer-winning writer Robert P. Tristram Coffin conjured the timeless pleasures of a yuletide gathering in rural Maine.


Departments

North by East

Your moment of Zen: David Bruggink records quiet soundtracks furnished by nature. The stats on Maine’s supersize holiday celebrations. A Waterville apothecary museum feels like an old-timey pharmacy. Plus, in Maine Dispatches, a Portland-themed Monopoly game passes go. 

Food and Drink

Hardshore Distilling, in Portland, gins up something new. A Bethel restaurant delivers creative cooking and bracing cocktails to the après-ski crowd. And a new snack puffs up an old Acadian staple.

Good Things from Maine

A guide to beautiful, thoughtful Maine-made gifts for the home, kids, and clotheshorses, from leather clogs to craft kits and from hand-stitched stuffies to wool scarves.

Maine Homes

A Yarmouth couple regroups after discovering lead in their Greek Revival, Wendy Weiger found peace wintering in a remote Greenville-area cabin, and the governor’s Christmas tree is put to a popular vote.

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Where in Maine

Maine Moment

Dooryard

Editor’s note, responses to October’s Where in Maine, the masthead, and more.

Columns

Room with a view

My Favorite Place

Rwandan-American singer Clarisse Karasira, on Waynflete’s Joan Sayward Franklin ’46 Theater. 

On our Cover: A family’s A-frame in Bethel, by Sean Litchfield.

Additional Photos: Dave Waddell, Jeff Roberts, and Brandon Pullen