A December Issue That Actually Earns Its Spot On The Counter
Every neighborhood has a season when it feels most like itself. For Ballantyne Country Club, December is that month. The greens are a little frostier, front steps pick up more Amazon traffic than usual, and a glossy magazine lands in the mailbox that quietly documents all of it.
The December 2025 Stroll Ballantyne Country Club print issue is that magazine. It opens on a cover promising a festive Stroll Holiday Event, a feature on Precious Pet Cricket, sponsor spotlights on Ombré Nail Ballantyne, Le Petit Spa, CELL Enterprises and Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte, plus community news wrapped around it all.
You can flip through the physical copy at the kitchen island or keep a digital version handy on your tablet or laptop.
Download the December 2025 Stroll Ballantyne Country Club issue.
This is the print cousin to what we try to do every week at Strolling Ballantyne: slow, careful neighborhood coverage that respects your privacy and your attention instead of chasing clicks.
Sponsor Pit Stop: Mercedes-Benz Of South Charlotte
Early in the issue, the Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte spotlight reminds you that “luxury dealer” here means service culture as much as horsepower. Now part of Penske Automotive Group, MBSC is led by General Manager Tom Marcham, who talks about the store as a long-term commitment to Charlotte rather than a quarterly numbers game.
In the profile, Marcham explains that customers come back because of how they are treated, not just what is on the lot. The dealership focuses on quality over volume and backs that up with steady support for Allegro Foundation, St. Jude’s, Second Harvest Food Bank, Nourish Up and Classroom Central.
If you want to go deeper into that story, we have full digital features at Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte – Luxury Car Dealer in NC and Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte – Luxury Sales Leader With A Community Engine, or you can head straight to the source at Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte.
Inside The December 2025 Issue
Holiday Mixer At Zinicola
The first big story is the Holiday Mixer at Zinicola, billed as Stroll BCC’s biggest event of the year. On November 6, residents from Ballantyne Country Club, Firethorne and Quail Hollow filled the restaurant for a night of food, music, shopping and giveaways. The writeup leans into what makes the Stroll ecosystem work in the first place: these are nights designed for connection, not just door prizes.
The piece also notes that every publication in the Stroll family supports efforts to fight human trafficking, which means your RSVP quietly helps underwrite something larger than a photo gallery.
The Village Behind The Pages
A few pages in, a “It Takes A Village” spread introduces the staff and contributors who pull this together each month. Publisher Ashley Grimm, content coordinator Delia McMullen, marketing and events coordinator Brynn Dombroski, content assistant Andrea Powell, ad coordinator Julia Riddle, senior resident reporter Allison Parker, resident reporter Yumo Yuan, publishing assistant Cynthia Grimm and columnist Payal Kothari all show up by name, which is a nice reminder that the magazine on your counter is made by actual neighbors, not a mystery content farm.
The same page doubles as a preview of what is inside this month: the Holiday Event, Precious Pet, Athlete of the Month, Resident Recipe, Tour & Travel, Home of the Month and the four Ballantyne business features that anchor the issue.
Athlete Of The Month: Elle Williams
In Athlete of the Month, we meet Elle Williams, an eighth grader at Holy Trinity Catholic Middle School who splits her time between school cheer and high-level soccer. She shares a sports bond with her brother Cooper, a strong high school golfer, and credits parents Brett and Angela Williams and the family’s Havapoo puppy Rory for giving her the kind of support system every competitive kid needs.
The profile traces her path from gymnastics, dance and The Nutcracker to a more focused soccer track, including a nomination to try out for the Olympic Development Program. She talks about color coded calendars, Post it notes and lists to keep school, travel soccer and cheer from colliding. Her chosen role model, Mia Hamm, feels exactly right.
Precious Pet: Cricket’s Neighborhood Fan Club
If you only have time for one feature, the Precious Pet story on Cricket Bickler is a strong contender. Cricket is a 5½ year old mixed breed whose ancestry reads like a census of the dog world: Australian cattle dog, beagle, chow chow, basset hound and more. The Bicklers met her in a Cracker Barrel parking lot in Wytheville, Virginia, after a rescue journey from Richmond through a Nashville based adoption program.
On the page, she is described as a 30 pound streak of energy who has become something of a celebrity with golfers along the fairway. She used to catch actual squirrels and has mercifully retired from that habit. These days, she prefers tug of war, yogurt containers approaching their final spoonful and greeting every family member like they have been away for weeks.
Resident Recipe: German Chocolate Cake
December issues live or die on dessert, and the Resident Recipe delivers. Contributing writer Nancy Williams shares a German Chocolate Cake that begins with a boxed cake mix and then pivots into a fully committed coconut pecan frosting situation. She admits she started with scratch cake and migrated to the mix after realizing that the frosting is where the magic happens.
The recipe includes evaporated milk, sugar, egg yolks, butter, vanilla, coconut and pecans cooked until thick, then cooled and spread between three layers. It is the kind of recipe that turns a quiet Sunday afternoon into a kitchen that smells like every holiday memory at once.
Ballantyne Businesses In Focus
One of the things that separates Stroll’s version of advertising from most is that sponsor spotlights read like short reported features. The December issue gives four of them the full treatment.
CELL Enterprises
The CELL Enterprises feature profiles founder Scott Witte, who noticed how many small businesses rely on referrals without a structured plan for growth. CELL offers “Sales as a Service” and fractional sales leadership, acting as an outsourced sales organization that builds systems from marketing through closing. A case study inside the piece details a local technology company that saw revenue rise two hundred percent in ten months after working with CELL to build a clear strategy and repeatable process.
Ombré Nail Ballantyne
At Ombré Nail Ballantyne, partners Ty Truong and Lee Ngo bring a large, bright salon with eighteen pedicure chairs, child friendly seating, facials and brow services. The article talks about meticulous cleanliness, licensed technicians, soothing music and complimentary drinks, then closes with a very practical detail: a ten percent discount on services for residents of Ballantyne Country Club and Firethorne.
Le Petit Spa
The Le Petit Spa sponsor spotlight introduces a med spa that leans heavily into customized facials, collagen boosting treatments and owner Priti Patel’s botanical facial oil, La Fleur. The piece notes Le Petit’s long streak of local “best of” awards and positions the spa as a place for ongoing skin care rather than last minute panic before a big event.
Mercedes-Benz Of South Charlotte, Revisited
The Mercedes-Benz of South Charlotte print piece walks through the store’s transition into the Penske group, revisits Marcham’s focus on treating customers like family, and lists the nonprofits MBSC supports across the region. If you have ever wondered why you keep seeing delivery photos from that Pineville address in your feed, this article quietly answers it.
How Print And Strolling Ballantyne Work Together
Stroll’s print magazines land once a month. Strolling Ballantyne updates quietly in the background, telling many of these stories with a little more room for context and follow up. Both are built on the same idea:
- Explain why something matters, not just what happened
- Avoid clickbait and noisy ad tactics
- Protect reader privacy with no third party tracking
If you want to explore beyond the December pages, the site gives you clean entry points:
- For what is happening around town, start with Events and the broader Ballantyne section.
- For meals, coffee, cocktails and “let’s just not cook tonight,” browse Hospitality.
- To meet your neighbors beyond a wave across the cul de sac, spend time in People and Pets.
- To keep up with the decisions that shape taxes, schools and roads, check Politics.
- To watch streets, lots and property values evolve, follow Real Estate.
Behind those sections are the pages that quietly define how we operate: About Us, Privacy Policy, Contact Us and Terms of Service.
Strolling Ballantyne is part of the broader Mercury family alongside The Charlotte Mercury, which covers Charlotte, North Carolina and national news with the same refusal to nag readers for clicks. For the full network view, you can step back to Mercury Local.
Help Fill The Next Issue
The back of the December issue is one long invitation. Readers are reminded that Stroll BCC is always looking for photos of Thanksgiving tables, holiday festivities, New Year’s celebrations, winter vacations, milestones, weddings and portraits of veterans, plus student writers who want to build a portfolio.
If you have a dog who thinks the golf course path belongs to them, a teenager who just finished their first season in travel soccer, or a recipe that could credibly compete with Nancy’s German Chocolate Cake, the staff would like to hear from you.
Send your photos and stories to ballantyne@strollmag.com. Everyone has a story worth sharing!
About The Author
Nell Thomas writes for Strolling Ballantyne and The Charlotte Mercury, usually with a notebook in one hand and coffee from Einstein Bros. Bagels in the other. In the December issue’s resident business guide, Einstein Bros. appears as a local food entry under Phillip Rice, with a phone number and an invitation to order online through orders.einsteinbros.com.
Most mornings, Nell is the person at the Ballantyne Einstein’s debating between a plain bagel, toasted and overloaded with schmear, or something more ambitious, while watching preschoolers in puffy coats negotiate chocolate milk, and retirees catch up over bottomless refills. When an issue like this drops, she tends to camp out a little longer, flipping between print pages and story drafts and promising herself that the next cup of coffee will be the last.
Her work for The Mercury family tries to connect these hyperlocal scenes to the larger story of how Charlotte and North Carolina are changing, one Holiday Mixer and one Cricket feature at a time.
The Sidewalk Map Footer
If you like a tidy place to start exploring, consider this your sidewalk map for a longer online stroll:
- Start with neighborhood coverage in Ballantyne.
- Check what is happening this week in Events.
- Find your next breakfast, date night or “please cook for us” spot in Hospitality.
- Meet your neighbors and their four legged co stars in People and Pets.
- Follow local decisions in Politics and the changing built environment in Real Estate.
- Learn who we are and how we publish at About Us, and keep an eye on how your data is treated through the Privacy Policy, Terms of Service and Contact Us.
- For the wider network, visit Mercury Local and The Charlotte Mercury.
Creative Commons License
© 2025 Strolling Ballantyne / The Charlotte Mercury
This article, “Inside Stroll Ballantyne Country Club’s December 2025 Holiday Issue,” by Nell Thomas is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.
“Inside Stroll Ballantyne Country Club’s December 2025 Holiday Issue”
by Nell Thomas, Strolling Ballantyne (CC BY-ND 4.0)