Lifestyle
Here for the Holidays: Make Them More Memorable Than Ever with Four Seasons
From snowy landscapes to sunny paradise, Four Seasons offers a collection of bespoke ways to celebrate around the world, with holiday-inspired activities to share with loved ones
TORONTO /PRNewswire/ — This year, the best gift of all may be sharing special moments, memorable meals, and epic adventures with family and loved ones, and friends old and new. The picture-perfect holiday celebration differs for everyone; it can be set on a sunny oceanfront paradise with twinkling turquoise waters or among scenic snow-covered mountains while sipping on handcrafted cocktails. Whatever the backdrop, Four Seasons offers a plethora of uniquely curated experiences to match any holiday inspiration and suit everyone from culinary connoisseurs to adventure-seekers. From a traditional après-style gathering around the table to a toast to the new year in grand style or a spur-of-the-moment family retreat, these experiences are opportunities to share and enjoy lifelong memories – all blanketed by the warmth and care of Four Seasons hospitality.










Sunny Destinations to Celebrate the Holidays
Island Getaways
- Enter a five-acre (two hectare) UNESCO haven for up to 22 guests at Four Seasons Private Island Maldives at Voavah, Baa Atoll, where property event experts partner with guests to create a completely personalized experience. Whether it’s hitting the ocean to swim with sharks or lounging poolside and watching dolphins at play, Voavah invites its guests to dream with their eyes open and enjoy a truly unforgettable holiday.
- Bask in the sun on the pristine blue waters of the Pacific Ocean aboard a 46-foot (14 metre) catamaran at Four Seasons Resort Hualālai. Aptly named Alaka’i Nui (great leader), the catamaran boasts an extended range, enabling guests to venture miles from the Resort to enjoy exciting new activities such as deep-sea fishing and exploration of additional snorkelling locations and beaches.
- Ring in the new year at Four Seasons Resort and Residences Anguilla while enjoying the sights from the famous Sunset Lounge and sounds from New York-based DJ Mia Moretti and Violinist Margot who are headlining the resort’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration.
- Escape to an island hideaway at Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa where the charming village setting complete with a lagoon, flower garden, and island spa provides total serenity. For adventure seekers, diving and surfing are island specialties and for the youngest guests, there are endless fun, educational, and culturally enriching activities available, from sandcastle building to hermit crab races.
- Welcome 2024 in electrifying style with a Neon Party at Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui, Thailand during a night filled with pulsating music and dazzling neon lights, including a fireworks display at midnight.
Holiday Fun with the Whole Family
- Skate the night away on a secret terrace at Four Seasons Hotel Mexico City, where guests can enjoy music, seasonal snacks, and for adults, handcrafted cocktails from Fifty Mils, named one of the World’s 50 Best Bars.
- At Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan, Santa plans to make a splash as he navigates the Ayung River before offering holiday greetings and treats for children at the Pici-Pici Kids Club. Meanwhile, at Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay, Santa continues his annual tradition of catching a few breaks while riding the waves with guests and the TropicSurf team.
- Celebrate Christmas Eve in tropical-style poolside and enjoy an open-fire barbecue and Miami-inspired cocktails with views of turquoise Biscayne Bay at Four Seasons Hotel Miami.
Enchanted Winter Escapes
- Enjoy a cozy cabin dining experience in the middle of the bustling city at Four Seasons Hotel Minneapolis where a Nordic Village sits on the Hotel’s outdoor fourth-floor pool deck, Riva Terrace. On weekends, cabins are transformed into an open-air market featuring products from local artists, makers, and creators.
- Indulge in a traditional fondue or raclette at Le Chalet des Etoiles, a Christmas Popup exuding a cozy alpine atmosphere decorated with twinkling lights and vintage skis located on the panoramic rooftop of Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues Geneva.
- Indulge in an elevated après experience after a day on the slopes and head to Ascent Lounge at Four Seasons Resort Jackson Hole to enjoy panoramic views of America’s most rugged peaks, all while sipping on a Backcountry Old Fashioned for a taste of Wyoming’s finest local whiskey.
- Enjoy dive-in holiday movies in the new waterfall-edge pool at Four Seasons Hotel Chicago for special viewings of iconic holiday tales with popcorn and cookies for a family night to remember.
Festive Feasting and Celebratory Drinks
The magic of the season begins around the table, and Four Seasons draws its inspiration from its guests, the secret ingredient for culinary magic. This festive season, the greatest gift to share is the experience of something new with loved ones. Here are a few of Four Seasons restaurants and bars serving up unexpected indulgences and delectable surprises – each carefully curated with love by its craftspeople.
A Culinary Discovery for Global Gastronomes
- Venture to Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire to experience the return of Off Piste, a Swiss-inspired pop-up winter concept restaurant. Enjoy a specially crafted menu by Executive Chef Talha Barkin featuring a delicious mix of Swiss cuisine, seasonal meats, vegetable charcuterie boards, and a classic cheese fondue complete with truffle shavings.
- Savour the taste of Italy on Christmas Eve in tropical surroundings with a sumptuous five-course set menu by Chef Marco Garfagnini at Acquapazza complemented by free-flowing wines and Champagne at Four Seasons Resort Mauritius at Anahita.
- Attract blessings for the new year with a bowl of piping hot toshikoshi soba on New Year’s Eve at THE LOUNGE at Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi and enjoy unobstructed city views. The thin and long noodles denote long life and a happy home in Japanese culture, perfect for ushering in a new year of hope and promise.
- Usher in the New Year with a selection of signature dining destinations at Four Seasons Resort Sharm El Sheikh including a celebratory Mediterranean set-menu at Bullona with live entertainment, an upscale Japanese and pan-Asian dining experience at Yatai, and a five-course menu featuring traditional Italian cuisine in an indoor-outdoor venue at Il Frantoio.
An Exploration of Cocktails and Spirits
- For a memorable sip, savour local classics such as the Takamaka Bay spiced dark rum from Mahé at Four Seasons Resort Seychelles at Desroches Island, or a playful twist on holiday flavours such as eggnog with Amaretto liqueur cocktail at Four Seasons Resort Chiang Mai, featuring a creamy texture and cinnamon flavour.
- Sip, shake, and stir up holiday favourites during a Mixology Masterclass at Noe bar at Four Seasons Resort O’ahu at Ko Olina, or participate in the Fire and Ice cocktail program at Braidwood Tavern at Four Seasons Resort and Residences Whistler.
- Get a unique glimpse into Budapest’s Golden Era Glam with a Champagne countdown event at MÚZSA at Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest featuring a champagne selection, craft cocktail creations, live entertainment, and Asian hors d’oeuvres.
Deck the Halls – and the Lobby, and the Pool Terrace, and More
- Step into the holiday warmth at Four Seasons Hotel George V, Paris, where the lobby and marble courtyard are punctuated with intricate gold and silver Festive decoration by Jeff Leatham. With a month-long celebration throughout December filled with live music and artistic performances, the Hotel is the perfect setting for a holiday dinner at the three-Michelin starred restaurant Le Cinq or an elegant afternoon tea celebration at La Galerie.
- Say aloha to the holiday season at Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea where they are welcoming back travellers and transforming their lobby in collaboration with local artist Noah Harders. Rooted in his love for the island, the Maui artist personally forages and sources as many elements as possible from the island. This year, head-turning installations will dazzle guests as the final lobby look will celebrate the rich culture of Maui. Utilizing traditional weaving techniques and Hawaiian elements, guests will be taken on a journey to a wondrous Hawaii where woven coconut palm fronds and striking palm leaves will set the base to this larger-than-life design.
- Guests at Four Seasons Hotel Seoul are treated to an elaborate Nordic display and floral arrangements created by internationally renowned floral artist Nicolai Bergmann, who draws on his Danish roots to create a cozy feel with winter greenery and glittering lights.
For more holiday happenings, visit fourseasons.com including the full festive program in Europe, and follow press.fourseasons.com for the latest festive news from Four Seasons hotels and resorts around the world.
About Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts opened its first hotel in 1961, and since that time has been dedicated to perfecting the travel experience through continual innovation and the highest standards of hospitality. Currently operating 126 hotels and resorts, and 53 residential properties in major city centres and resort destinations in 47 countries, and with more than 50 projects under planning or development, Four Seasons consistently ranks among the world’s best hotels and most prestigious brands in reader polls, traveller reviews and industry awards. For more information and reservations, visit fourseasons.com.
SOURCE Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
Health
Acclinate Collaborates with Merck to Increase Clinical Trial Diversity
Acclinate to provide community engagement support for Merck’s oncology clinical trials.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. /PRNewswire/ — Acclinate, an expert in health equity through inclusive research, is collaborating with Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, to help increase participation by members of the Black/African American community in Merck’s oncology clinical studies.
“We’re proud to be working with Merck because being a champion for health equity through inclusive research takes strategic orientation and proactiveness. We look forward to seeing how our continued collaboration can positively impact patients,” said Del Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of Acclinate.
As part of the initiative, Acclinate will utilize its NOWINCLUDED platform, a trusted health education and engagement source created by and for the Black/African American community. NOWINCLUDED offers access to health information and resources around disorders that disproportionately affect communities of color and provides a space for community members to share their experiences and connect. With a wealth of original and curated content, NOWINCLUDED is designed to build trust between healthcare providers and people from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups to empower them to make better-informed health decisions, including considering clinical trial participation.
Additionally, Acclinate will contribute its proprietary predictive analytics tool, e-DICT (Enhanced Diversity in Clinical Trials), that provides real-time reporting on community access and engagement activities and insights into potential participants. It also offers key features such as displaying access potential, tracking engagement and mobilization progress and is driven by a patent-pending Participation Probability Index (PPI) that assesses the likelihood of community members participating in clinical research.
“Community engagement is a key step toward increasing diversity in clinical trials,” said Adrelia Allen, Executive Director, Clinical Trial Patient Diversity, Merck. “We’re excited to collaborate with Acclinate to raise awareness among the Black/African American community of available clinical trials for people with cancer. It is important that our research appropriately reflects the communities we serve.”
About Acclinate
Acclinate is a digital health company that is working to improve health equity through predictive analytics technology and community engagement. We combine empowered community building in diverse demographics with data analysis to help pharmaceutical companies actively increase representation in their clinical trials and other healthcare organizations support inclusivity in their initiatives. Acclinate is a catalyst that turns trust and data into products that better serve communities of color. For more information on Acclinate, visit www.acclinate.com and connect with us on LinkedIn. To learn more about NOWINCLUDED and join the community built for healthier communities of color, visit www.NOWINCLUDED.com and follow us on Instagram.
Acclinate media contact:
SOURCE Acclinate
Health
Pioneering early-onset Alzheimer’s disease study is focus of Alzheimer’s & Dementia special issue
Newswise — INDIANAPOLIS – A pioneering Alzheimer’s disease study led by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers is the focus of a special issue of Alzheimer’s & Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Led by IU School of Medicine’s Liana G. Apostolova, MD, the Longitudinal Early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease Study (LEADS) is the largest and most comprehensive study of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which to this point has been an under-studied condition, in the United States. The study began in 2018 with over $44 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging (NIA).
Dustin B. Hammers, PhD, an associate professor of neurology at the IU School of Medicine and the lead neuropsychologist on the LEADS study, said given that so little has been established about early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers strove to choose pieces for the special issue that characterized the condition according to its presentation clinically, cognitively, genetically, and from a biological-marker perspective. The latter includes using MRI and PET imaging and cerebrospinal fluid measurement to look at hallmark changes in the brain related to temporal lobe atrophy and the presence of β-amyloid and tau proteins.
“Smaller studies have long suggested that early-onset Alzheimer’s disease may present differently than traditional-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but until the LEADS study, concerns related to study sample or methods interfered with interpretation,” said Hammers, who is also the principal investigator on the NIA- and Alzheimer’s Association- funded LEADS-sub-study Lifestyle Interventions for the Treatment of Early-Onset AD Study (LITES). “With this special issue on LEADS, the reader is provided a collection of findings on the most well-characterized sample of patients with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, all in one place. Our goal with this special issue was to permit the reader to have a more thorough understanding of early-onset Alzheimer’s after reading it.”
Hammers said none of this research could have occurred without the visionary leadership of Apostolova and other principal investigators Maria C. Carrillo, PhD, of the Alzheimer’s Association; Brad Dickerson, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; and Gil Rabinovici, MD, of the University of California San Francisco; as well as the generous support of the NIA and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Journal Link: Alzheimer’s & Dementia
Source: Indiana University
Health
Scientists uncover how fermented-food bacteria can guard against depression, anxiety
Newswise — University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered how Lactobacillus, a bacterium found in fermented foods and yogurt, helps the body manage stress and may help prevent depression and anxiety. The findings open the door to new therapies to treat anxiety, depression and other mental-health conditions.
The new research from UVA’s Alban Gaultier, Ph.D., and collaborators is notable because it pinpoints the role of Lactobacillus, separating it out from all the other microorganisms that naturally live in and on our bodies. These organisms are collectively known as the microbiota, and scientists have increasingly sought to target them to battle disease and improve our health. UVA’s new research represents a major step forward in that effort, providing scientists an innovative new approach to understand the role of individual microbes that could facilitate the development of new treatments and cures for a wide variety of diseases, both mental and physical.
“Our discovery illuminates how gut-resident Lactobacillus influences mood disorders, by tuning the immune system,” said Gaultier, of UVA’s Department of Neuroscience, the Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG Center) and the TransUniversity Microbiome Initiative. “Our research could pave the way towards discovering much-needed therapeutics for anxiety and depression.”
The Microbiota and Depression
Our guts are naturally home to countless bacteria, fungi, and viruses. There are more microorganisms living in and on us than there are cells in our bodies. That may sound disgusting, even alarming, but scientists have increasingly realized that these tiny organisms and their endless interactions are critical to our immune systems’ health, our mental health, and many other facets of our well-being. Disruptions of the microbiota, whether from illness, poor diet, or other causes, are known to contribute to many diseases and even help cancer spread. So, researchers have been hugely excited in recent years about the potential to battle diseases by targeting the microbiota.
Early attempts to manipulate the gut flora with beneficial bacteria, called probiotics, have produced mixed results. A big part of the problem has been the sheer complexity of the microbiome. It’s estimated that there are 39 trillion microorganisms inside each of us, so trying to understand what specific bacteria or fungi do – much less how they interact with all the other microorganisms and their host – can be like trying to count grains of sand on the beach.
Gaultier and his team took an innovative approach to hone in on Lactobacilli in specific. Prior research from Gaultier’s lab suggested that the bacteria could reverse depression in lab mice – a hugely promising finding. But the researchers needed to understand how.
“We were aware from our prior research that Lactobacillus was beneficial in improving mood disorders and was lost following psychological stress, but the underlying reasons remained unclear, primarily due to the technical challenges associated with studying the microbiome.”
Gaultier and his team decided to continue their depression research using a collection of bacteria, known as Altered Schaedler Flora, which includes two strains of Lactobacillus and six other bacterial strains. With this rarely used bacterial community, the team was able to create mice both with and without Lactobacillus,circumventing the need for antibiotics.
Sure enough, the Altered Schaedler Flora produced exciting results. Gaultier and his colleagues were able to explain exactly how Lactobacilli influence behavior, and how a lack of the bacteria can worsen depression and anxiety. Lactobacilli in the family Lactobaccillacea, they found, maintain the levels of an immune mediator called interferon gamma that regulates the body’s response to stress and helps stave off depression.
Armed with this information, researchers are poised to develop new ways to prevent and treat depression and other mental-health conditions in which Lactobacillus plays an important role. For example, patients struggling with (or at risk for) depression might one day take specially formulated probiotic supplements that will optimize their levels of helpful Lactobacillus.
“With these results in hand, we have new tools to optimize the development of probiotics, which should speed up discoveries for novel therapies,” said researcher Andrea R. Merchak, Ph.D. “Most importantly, we can now explore how maintaining a healthy level of Lactobacillus and/or interferon gamma could be investigated to prevent and treat anxiety and depression.”
Findings Published
The UVA scientists have published their findings in the journal Brain Behavior and Immunity. The research team consisted of Merchak, Samuel Wachamo, Lucille C. Brown, Alisha Thakur, Brett Moreau, Ryan M. Brown, Courtney Rivet-Noor, Tula Raghavan and Gaultier. The researchers have no financial interest in the work.
The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, grants T32 NS115657, T32 GM008136, F31 AI174782, T32 GM007267 and T32 GM148379; the Owens Family Foundation; the Miller Family; the UVA TransUniversity Microbiome Initiative; and the UVA Presidential Fellowship in Neuroscience.
UVA’s TransUniversity Microbiome Initiative, or TUMI, serves as the central hub for the University’s cutting-edge microbiome research. The initiative aims to expand our understanding of the microbiome to better treat and prevent disease.
To keep up with the latest medical research news from UVA, subscribe to the Making of Medicine blog at http://makingofmedicine.virginia.edu.
-
Community9 months ago
Diana Gregory Talks to us about Diana Gregory’s Outreach Services
-
Senior Pickleball Report10 months ago
ACE PICKLEBALL CLUB TO DEBUT THEIR HIGHLY ANTICIPATED INDOOR PICKLEBALL FRANCHISES IN THE US, IN EARLY 2023
-
Entertainment12 months ago
The Absolute Most Comfortable Pickleball Shoe I’ve Ever Worn!
-
Blog10 months ago
Unique Experiences at the CitizenM
-
Automotive9 months ago
2023 Nissan Sentra pricing starts at $19,950
-
Senior Pickleball Report10 months ago
“THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARDS OF PICKLEBALL” – VOTING OPEN
-
influencers10 months ago
Keeping Pickleball WEIRD, INEXPENSIVE and FUN? These GUYS are!
-
Blog11 months ago
Assistory Showing Support on Senior Assist Day