Deborah Tannen's advice on how to create a living room that encourages people to talk to one another:

Gathering today with your nearest, dearest and others? Holidays, much like relationships, can be "made, maintained and broken" through conversations, says Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen, who has written many books on analyzing conversational styles.

As the holiday looms on the calendar, I sometimes think it ought to be called Angstgiving. Assembling the throng is tricky enough.

Having a sale? The Sales Talk column is looking for super deals on home furnishings, accessories and services at stores across the area to share with our readers. Let us know the details at least two weeks in advance. Write us at localliving@washpost.com , or call 202-334-4409.

Mold grows like crazy in all my bathroom toilets, in four of the seven faucets and in one of the two shower heads.

Near the end of her struggle to find the right high school for a son who does not always share her tastes, Tracey Henley was overjoyed to discover that some of her son's best friends had endorsed her choice and that his resistance had vanished. "So now we don't have to forge his signature on the...

These food establishments were closed because of health code violations. The list, compiled from health department reports, reflects actions taken by the departments.

The opening of a bike lane down one street in the District generated a lot of interest among readers [ Dr. Gridlock, Nov. 15 ]. I think one reason is that we don't get many chances to talk about innovation in our transportation system. Another is that changes in travel patterns tend to divide...

Think your home is less polluted than a city street? Think again.

Before she went rogue, Sarah Palin got lost. She was stalking "majestic dall sheep with their thick curled horns" in a national park, she writes in her new book, "Going Rogue." "I was only about eight years old, and for a couple of anxious hours of climbing hillsides and calling my name, no one...

There are Thanksgivings that evoke general thanks, and there are Thanksgivings that evoke specific thanks. For the Ganey family of College Park, this year it will most certainly be the latter.

The housing market might be iffy right now, but there's still an audience for homes made of delicious gingerbread. At least that's the hope behind this 10th annual contest and show at Darnall's Chance House Museum, with one category for children and another for adults. A Gingerbread House Committee...

Nov. 26 "MYSTERY IN MO'TOWN" This murder mystery follows representatives of a record label on the road to find new talent. With karaoke for the audience. Thursday at 2 p.m., show at 4 p.m.; Friday-Saturday at 6:30 p.m., show at 8:30 p.m. Blair Mansion Inn, 7711 Eastern Ave., Silver Spring....

The theme of this year's Festival of Trees, which benefits Hospice of Charles County, is "Home for the Holidays." Trees and wreaths will be decorated for the 22nd annual event, which kicks off Friday with a hypnotist show. Other events include a lunch with Santa Claus, a senior brunch, a memorial...

On this day, as the nation sits down for the annual feast that launches the holiday season, it could be the way you say something to a friend or relative -- and not your mother-in-law's gravy -- that makes or breaks the day.

"We'd like this to be the informal area where we can eat dinner without worrying about spilling on nice dining room rugs."

After being mesmerized by the slow and pretty leaf drop of autumn, we wake up around Thanksgiving day to the reality of the naked garden.

Do the planet and your garden a favor by recycling fallen leaves. Leaves can be added to the compost pile or spread as mulch over garden beds. They should be chopped up first with a lawn mower to speed decay.

I have an eight-year-old kousa dogwood, chosen for its purported disease resistance, that lost its leaves from the inside out over most of the summer. The leaves just yellowed and dropped, and by late August the tree had leaves only on its outermost tips.

These sales were recorded in Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties and supplied to The Washington Post by Spatial Systems Associates, the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation and the Maryland Department of Planning. To find sale and assessment records for homes in Southern...

Here is an edited excerpt from The Post's On Parenting blog. Read the latest posts at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/parenting .

Dear Dr. Fox: My 10-year-old male cat had to be euthanized.

Dogs, cats and horses can relax while listening to music. Who knew?

For more than two decades, families have gone to Flat Iron Farm in Great Mills to enjoy a free festival of Christmas lights, which starts on Thanksgiving and ends on New Year's Eve.

The College of Southern Maryland has created a hospitality-management degree program.

The holiday season brings with it an overabundance of advice on how to avoid gaining weight in the face of all those festive meals, cocktail parties and plates of cookies brought in by co-workers. Depending on whose advice you're inclined to heed, you can cut back on carbs, mind the glycemic inde...

Picture this: You and a dozen other people are gathered on couches somewhere today, watching a football game on the big screen and consuming a ridiculously fattening selection of snacks that precede an enormous and even more fattening Thanksgiving meal.

The next Board of County Commissioners in Charles County could have bigger paychecks, despite a year in which county employees faced furloughs and cutbacks.

Water clarity and oxygen levels in the St. Mary's River are at failing levels, largely because of development.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, U.S. House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick visited C. Paul Barnhart Elementary School in Waldorf recently to discuss the importance of early learning and full-service community schools.

A Nov. 15 Southern Maryland Extra article incorrectly identified one of the Charles County sheriff's officers who shot Cornelius Maurice Warren. His name is John Freeman. Officer Eric Leukhardt was at the scene but did not fire his weapon.

Charles County Commissioner Reuben B. Collins II (D-Waldorf) and Gene Davies attended the Cross-County Connector Forum at the College of Southern Maryland on Nov. 4. Mr. Collins was quoted [Southern Maryland Extra, Nov. 8] as saying that additional roads built by developers in the Billingsley Road...

These deaths were reported by funeral homes in Southern Maryland:

Huntingtown running back Greg Goodwin knew his team was fired up to face defending Maryland 3A champion Westlake one more time this year. The Hurricanes wanted to prove that they deserved to be in any conversation about elite football programs and that their one-point win over Westlake in the...

12 AND YOUNGER: Southern Maryland travel team seeks one player. Rick, skippyrich@yahoo.com , 301-751-7760.

The governors of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware have announced a partnership designed to promote and coordinate the development of wind energy off the mid-Atlantic coast.