A 60-foot blue spruce tree arrived in downtown Stillwater this week — just in time for the annual Hometown for the Holidays’ Twinkle Party and tree lighting on Saturday.

The 6,800-pound tree, a gift to the city from Aamodt’s Apple Farm in Grant, now stands in Chestnut Street Plaza.

A 60-foot blue spruce tree was transported from Aamodt’s Apple Farm to the Chestnut Street Plaza in downtown Stillwater on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Courtesy of Greg Schulz / PicturesOverStillwater.com)

Owner Chris Aamodt said the tree, which was originally 68 feet tall, was planted by his paternal grandfather, Thor Aamodt, sometime in the 1960s. Thor and his wife, Lucille, started Aamodt’s Apple Farm in 1948 after Thor Aamodt retired from his job as a professor of horticulture and entomology at the University of Minnesota-St. Paul campus.

“The orchard was his retirement project,” Chris Aamodt said. “I literally remember being there when he planted it. My dad (Tom Aamodt) told him that it was too close to the barns and that we would need to cut it down in 40 or 50 years. I think Grandpa planned this.”

Aamodt said he contacted Mayor Ted Kozlowski a few years ago after the mayor put out a request for a tree for the holiday display at Lowell Park. “I said, ‘Dude, I think I have your tree,’” he said.

It turned out Aamodt’s tree was too big for the space at Lowell Park, but city officials made sure that the city’s new Chestnut Street Plaza could handle “a tree that would rival the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree,” he said.

Jeff and Missy Hause, of JAM Freedom, helped coordinate the crew that cut down the tree and transported it. Among the companies that helped: Big Sky Crane Co., McCallie’s Tree Service and Miller Excavating, Jeff Hause said.

The city’s Twinkle Party will start at 4:30 p.m. Saturday in North Lowell Park. Santa is slated to arrive – by fire truck – around 5 p.m. The lighting of the tree will be at 5:30 p.m.

For more information, go to https://greaterstillwaterchamber.com.

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By Wendy Lee, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Six years ago, when San Jose author Katie Keridan joined Disney+, the cost was just $6.99 a month, giving her family access to hundreds of movies like “The Lion King” and thousands of TV episodes, including Star Wars series “The Mandalorian” with no commercials.

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But since then, the price of an ad-free streaming plan has ballooned to $18.99 a month. That was the last straw for 42-year-old Keridan, whose husband canceled Disney+ last month.

“It was getting to where every year, it was going up, and in this economy, every dollar matters, and so we really had to sit down and take a hard look at how many streaming services are we paying for,” Keridan said. “What’s the return on enjoyment that we’re getting as a family from the streaming services? And how do we factor that into a budget to make sure that all of our bills are paid at the end of a month?”

It’s a conversation more people who subscribe to streaming services are having amid an uncertain economy.

Once sold at discounted rates, many platforms have raised prices at a clip consumers say frustrates them. The entertainment companies, under pressure from investors to bolster profits, have justified upping the cost of their plans to help pay for the premium content they provide. But some viewers aren’t buying it.

Customers are paying $22 more for subscription video streaming services than they were a year ago, according to consulting firm Deloitte. As of October, U.S. households on average shelled out $70 a month, compared to $48 a year ago, Deloitte said.

About 70% of consumers surveyed last month said they were frustrated the entertainment services that they subscribe to are raising prices and about a third said they have cut back on subscriptions in the last three months due to financial concerns, according to Deloitte.

“There’s a frustration, just in terms of both apathy, but also from a perspective that they just don’t think it’s worth the monthly subscription cost because of just fatigue,” said Rohith Nandagiri, managing director at Deloitte Consulting LLP.

Disney+ has raised prices on its streaming service nearly every year since it launched in 2019 at $6.99 a month. The company bumped prices on ad-free plans by $1 in 2021, followed by $3 increases in 2022 and 2023, a $2 price raise in 2024 and, most recently, a $3 increase this year to $18.99 a month.

Disney isn’t the only streamer to raise prices. Other companies, including Netflix, HBO Max and Apple TV also hiked prices on many of their subscription plans this year.

Some analysts say streamers are charging more because many services are adding live sports, the rights to which can cost millions of dollars. Streaming services for years have also given consumers access to big budget TV shows and original movies, and as production costs rise, they expect viewers to pay more, too.

But some consumers like Keridan have a different perspective. As much as some streaming platforms are adding new content like live sports, they are also choosing not to renew some big budget shows like “Star Wars: The Acolyte.” Keridan, a Marvel and Star Wars fan, said she mainly watched Disney+ for movies such as “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and shows like “The Mandalorian.” Now she’s going back to watching some programs ad-free on Blu-ray discs.

While Keridan cut Disney+, her family still subscribes to YouTube Premium and Paramount+. She said she uses YouTube Premium for workout videos instead of paying for a gym membership. Her family enjoys watching Star Trek programs on Paramount+, like the third season of “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” Keridan said.

Other consumers are choosing to keep their streaming subscriptions but look for cost savings through cheaper plans with ads, or by bundling services.

“Consumers are more willing today than ever to withstand advertising and for the sake of being able to get content for a lower subscription rate,” said Brent Magid, CEO and president of Minneapolis-based media consulting firm Magid. “We’ve seen that number increase just as people’s budgets have gotten tighter.”

Keridan said she’s already cutting other types of spending in her household in addition to quitting Disney+. The amount of money her family spends on groceries has gone up, and in order to save cash, they’ve cut back on traveling for the year. Typically, Keridan says, they would go on two or three vacations annually, but this year, they will only go to Disneyland in Anaheim.

But even the Happiest Place on Earth hasn’t escaped price hikes.

“Just as the streaming fees have risen, park fees have risen,” Keridan said. “And so it just seems every price of anything is rising these days, and they’re now directly in competition with each other. We can’t keep them all, so we have to make hard cuts.”

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

St. Paul author, minister and artist Peggy Pugh holds her new holiday-themed coloring book Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. Pugh is hoping to donate 100 copies of the new book, along with coloring tools, by Saturday. (Talia McWright / Pioneer Press)

Peggy Pugh remembers coloring at 3 years old. She remembers how her parents would argue in the background and how, despite the chaos in the home, she’d find her own little pocket of peace. One that was all hers. A blank canvas she could color with whatever colors she’d like.

“Coloring is very healing,” Pugh said.

This holiday season, Pugh designed her own holiday-themed adult coloring book, geared toward women. Pugh is hoping to donate 100 copies of “Rest & Color Coloring Book for Women: Christmas Edition,” along with coloring utensils, to women living in local shelters and experiencing homelessness. She currently has 53 sets sponsored, and is asking the public to consider helping her reach her goal of 100 by Saturday to gift “to women who may otherwise not receive presents on Christmas.”

“We focus a lot on how joyful the holidays are: people out shopping and spending time being with family,” Pugh said. “That’s one side of the story. There’s another side of the story, where some people don’t know where their family members are or their family members have given up on them.”

During the holidays, for people who don’t have the money they wish they had, “it ends up being a sad kind of day.”

Worthy of rest

At 72, the St. Paul author, minister and entrepreneur has accomplished many things. She’s worked in the professional sphere, raised children, created jewelry lines and continues to follow whatever creative venture she’s inspired by next, she said. And still, after a long, jam-packed day, when Pugh picks up a coloring book at the edge of her bed, she is transported to a place of childlike artistry, consumed by the feeling of peace it brings her.

Peggy Pugh flips through the pages of her new coloring book. (Talia McWright / Pioneer Press)

Not all women have been fortunate enough to leave environments of chaos, Pugh said. Some live in shelters, protecting themselves and often their children from abuse, and others are without a home.

These women are worthy, Pugh said. They have value and deserve gifts this holiday season, as does anyone, she said. They deserve to enjoy moments of rest, without the constant stressors of the day on their shoulders, and that’s what she hopes her coloring book will do for them: offer a moment of rest and maybe even a moment of healing, she said.

“I think there are people who have never colored in their adulthood, especially if they never colored as kids,” Pugh said. “So if they see something like a coloring book, they think, ‘Oh, no, this is great for children, but this isn’t for adults.”

Rest and color

Her book is called “Rest & Color” because rest is important, Pugh said.

Pugh hopes to donate 100 copies of her coloring book to women in shelter. (Talia McWright / Pioneer Press)

Being raised in an abusive household, Pugh said, she was always trying to prove herself worthy. She became very performance-oriented and, even when she felt something was wrong in her body, she ignored it. She had a stroke at 22.

“God loved me enough to knock me down, but not knock me out,” Pugh said. “There were so many lessons that I learned from that, and that was, nobody’s gonna give you permission to rest. … Rest brings restoration to your mind and your body. Healing happens when you’re restful.”

Pugh said she and her husband, Ken Pugh, have had a lot of conversations about rest this year. Their conversations inspired her to write a book, released in October, titled “Rest Is A Weapon: Winning Spiritual Battles From A Place of Rest.”

For many like her, Pugh said, rest is a discipline until it becomes a delight, and the book is about how to develop the skills to delight in rest.

“I want to be able to lift the spirits of people, of some women,” Pugh said. “I want to be able to let her know that she’s worth it. She’s worth being thought about. She’s worth getting a gift, and she doesn’t have to pay for it, and she doesn’t have to earn it.”

The gift of giving

Inside the coloring book are pages of winter and holiday-themed images like nutcrackers, snowflakes, children sledding, poinsettias, snow globes, snowmen and hot cocoa. Pugh said she was also intentional in including images that represent “Jesus, the reason for the season.”

She also intentionally includes images of Black women, she said. Inside, artists will also find a cartoon image of Pugh herself, and even one with her and her husband, who wears a Santa hat, just for fun.

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“I’m hoping that there are enough individuals out there who would be willing to be selfless, and take $15 that they are going to spend on getting gifts for themselves or for their family, and think about buying a color set to give to a woman,” Pugh said. “The other thing is that I’m hoping that whoever receives this gift, she knows she’s not forgotten.”

One “Rest & Color” book and a set of colored pencils costs $15 and can be purchased directly through Pugh’s website, rrpeggypugh.com. Individual coloring books can also be purchased for $10. In the near future, Pugh plans to release coloring books tailored to men, along with seasonal coloring books and MLK Day and Black History Month-themed coloring books.

By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in more than three years last week, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s upcoming decision on interest rates.

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The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 29 fell to 191,000 from the previous week’s 218,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the lowest level since September 24, 2022, when claims came in at 189,000. Analysts surveyed by the data provider FactSet had forecast initial claims of 221,000.

Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The job cuts announced recently by large companies such as UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon typically take weeks or months to fully implement and may not be reflected in Thursday’s data.

For now, the U.S. job market appears stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low, but has left those out of work struggling to find a new job.

On Wednesday, private payroll data firm ADP estimated U.S. job losses of 32,000 in November. The surprisingly weak report may be discouraging for people looking for jobs, but it bolstered expectations that the Fed will cut its main interest rate next week.

It’s not clear how much weight this week’s layoff figures will carry with the Fed as the numbers can be volatile and prone to revisions.

Complicating the Fed’s upcoming decision is inflation, which remains above the central bank’s 2% target. The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation will be released in a government report on Friday and will also be factored into its rate call.

Two weeks ago, the government said that hiring picked up a bit in September, when employers added 119,000 new jobs. That mixed report, which also showed employers had shed jobs in August, was delayed due to the government shutdown. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, its highest level in four years, as more Americans returned to the labor market in search of work though they did not all immediately find jobs.

November’s comprehensive jobs data has been delayed for release until later this month, after the Fed’s meeting, also due to the government shutdown.

The government also recently reported that retail sales slowed in September after three months of healthy increases.

Consumer confidence has plunged to its second-lowest level in five years, while wholesale inflation eased a bit.

The data suggests that both the economy and inflation are slowing, which has boosted financial markets’ expectations that the Federal Reserve will reduce its key interest rate at its meeting next week. If the Fed does reduce its benchmark rate next week, it would be the third cut of the year as it attempts to support a job market that has been slowing for months.

Thursday’s report from Labor also showed that the four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 9,500 to 214,750.

The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Nov. 22 dipped by 4,000 to 1.94 million, the government said.