Season's Greetings to all!

'Tis the season for guilty pleasures, soon we'll be re-gifting or standing in line (again) to return presents that just recently peaked our curiosity. We'll be saying our good-byes to relatives and house guests and revisiting why we moved away from the folks back home in the first place, though our love for them is even deeper now that we feel a little bit older, or is that the weather and the hangover?

We'll ring in the New Year with kisses and horns blasting, but our resolutions will be broken perhaps before the night is through. All that is left is to clean up the mess, send our thank-yous, get those pictures developed, and assess the damage, I mean past year.



Do you hate that as much as I do when the newscasters and gossip shows endlessly recount where we've been? There are the most embarrassing moments for celebrities, the best dressed and worst dressed, oh, and the fortune teller predictions for 2008! Now that we have extra time at home we tend to turn on the television even more and try to watch programs that are meant to please everyone but please no one or just the most determined voice in the house. If we're lucky those sports enthusiasts among us will catch a good game, or season of games. For others it will be a soap opera, or movie at the local movie theater. We may even venture farther to catch a really good flick. There's more shopping with our Christmas money and gift cards and there are leftovers, turkey sandwiches, a good turkey soup. Maybe we'll stop for a hamburger for a change.



Occasionally a pang of guilt may creep over our fat shadow reminding us that many go to bed hungry while we throw platefuls down the disposal. Some outgoing souls collect clothes for the poor or volunteer at soup kitchens and hospitals but you need fortitude for that and must not cry easily. Or if you do, you must cry well with others and give hugs freely. I'm much too timid, though I do clean out my closet this time of year and donate clothes and clutter to a better place. I feel extremely full and outstandingly generous, unless I'm traveling, packed in like a sardine.

They say if you want to break up do it after the holidays so that you have a date for all those important occasions. I'm usually so stressed that I catch a really bad cold and then I look terrible in photographs. Why do we do it? Social pressure, conscience, the need for nearness... Dearness, what a season! There's nothing for it, Happy Holidays!