• Scented Stocking Stuffers Santa sweetens Nebraska homes for the holidays with help from Cornhusker families who create lavender, wood and “bay rum” scents in candles, soaps, aftershave and bath bombs. By Cheyenne Rowe
• Looking Close at Cather Red Cloud celebrates the 150th birthday of its Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Willa Cather, who is remembered in the same class as other American literary greats for her novels that memorialize Great Plains pioneers. Essay by Ashley Olson
• Block 16 Restaurant Paul and Jess Urban created what a national food critic called the “best burger in America,” a review that helped put their downtown Omaha restaurant on the nation’s culinary map. By Tom Hess
• Nebraska’s Peaks Nebraska’s summits are not mountains, but peaks – jewels nestled throughout the state. For those with curiosity and adventure in their hearts, there is a range of beauty to be found in our vast landscape. Story by Matthew Spencer Photographs by Steve and Bobbi Olson
  
  

ON OUR COVER Nebraska’s famed author, Willa Cather, didn’t always smile for the camera, but on this occasion, it was her 63rd birthday, Dec. 7, 1936. Photography credit: National Willa Cather Center