A Christmas to Remember, until next year.

Oh sure, you think you can quit anytime you want, it is just a social habit. You started small, just giving a few trinkets to friends, and family. Maybe a few small stockings hung with care. Soon, though, you started making cookies, and taking them for co-workers. Then it was fudge, and caramel popcorn, and decorative coffee mugs filled with handmade goodies and lottery tickets.

And now you are hooked, plans are formed as Halloween candy is being purchased. Oh sure the fun sized candy bars are in the basket, but secretly you are planning on Candy Canes, and Eggnog.

Once the pesky trick or treaters have quit you start planning, formulating, scheming. Sure, Thanksgiving is coming, but that is just the opening act of the big play. And this year you are bringing home the Oscar, or Emmy, or Tony or whatever they give for best "Live Production of Christmas Perfection." Because that is what you are pulling off, the perfect Christmas.

People from all over will be talking about the Christmas you are pulling off. That tree is so beautiful it has moved you to tears. And the gifts under it are carefully researched, perfectly appropriate for the recipients. Each is wrapped in coordinated paper, and ribbons, and arranged in a pattern reflecting the golden ratio. Anybody who goes anywhere near them will have to die, horribly.

And Christmas day is choreographed, and meticulously planned right to the very end. It is laid out by the second, from the alarm to the last pitter patter of little feat stumbling tiredly to bed.

Yes, this is going to be the perfect Christmas!  And if you are going to top it next year you had better start now. And it will be spectacular.

Life Explained, explains vacations,

The key to having a relaxing, fun filled vacation is preparation, planning, and careful, meticulous attention to detail.  It is no fun to get to ski slopes and find that you had packed cargo shorts, tank tops, a swimsuit and sunscreen.  Of course it would save a lot of pain, and potential injury, possible death, but it might force you to move the television into the bathroom so you can put on your swimsuit and set in the tub, pretending to be on a tropical resort island.  However, by the time you get your wife and three kids, and your in-laws crammed in there it might get a little tense.  A situation best avoided, considering how the in-laws feel about your already.  So, just pack correctly.

Packing correctly for a week long trip to the Smoky Mountains, for me, involves laying out enough clothes for about a month and a half, so my wife can go through and say things like "you are not taking that."  "What shirt did you plan to wear with these?" and a personal favorite, "where did you unearth this ancient thing?" And then she will grab all of the clothes, in her dainty, delicate, lovely arms, carry them out to the dumpster, hop in her car, and forty five minutes later will come back with a brand new suitcase filled with brand new clothes, a tank full of gas, and some ribs to throw on the grill.  And I am packed and ready to go.  This approach is not for everyone, and please remember results may vary, but it works for me.

Make sure you have plenty of drinks on ice, cola, bottled water, and tea are good choices.  A supply of snacks is a good idea as well, maybe some chips, and pretzels, peanuts, and beef jerky are wonderful, and tasty.  You will need to know where all of the rest areas are you will need them.  Here is a good place to find them, Wow, you can "rest" almost everywhere.

Get a good nights sleep, eat a good breakfast, and jump in the car, don't worry that you left the iron, and almost every light in the house, on, and the water running in the bathroom, and your lawn will grow faster than it ever has before, and the camera is sitting right beside your glasses, wallet, and the only key you have to get back into your house just go, have a good time, you deserve a vacation.

Vacation, what a great idea.

In one week and two days I will be on vacation.  There is something about vacation, something spiritual, something heavenly, something powerful, wonderful, and liberating.  People who have vacation scheduled are always a little happier, a little more cheerful, they smile more, are more liable to whistle.  

"Hey, Phil, can you compile a list of all known clients who have purchased anything with any value from anybody in the whole world in the last two centuries?"

"Sure can, Bob, have it done before lunch, and then I will buy you lunch.  Is pizza ok?  Bring your whole family, my treat."

People who have just returned from vacation are sullen, venomous, and range anywhere from manic depression to homicidal rage.  Angry, resentful, and incendiary, they are best avoided.

"Hey, Phil, how was your vacation?"

"Hey, Bob, how about you kiss my a$$!"

For the longest time we had to hire armed security to keep the two groups separated.  We opened a new break room, (it cut down on the fire fights in over coffee, and donuts) and designated a "vacation scheduled lavatory," and a "just returned restroom" with padded fixtures and stalls that will not lock.  People are required to wear slip on shoes or surrender their shoelaces before using that facility.

It was a good temporary solution, but then we came up with a great idea.  A vacation planner!  The minute you return from work you need to start planning for your next vacation.  On your first day back, the minute you walk in the door, our grief counselor vacation planner is waiting with brochures of potential vacation spots, filled with glossy photos or beautiful people having an extraordinarily good time doing all sorts of fun things, smiling, laughing and just vacationing the heck out of things.

It is an amazing transformation, crushed and defeated to delighted and overjoyed in minutes.  They start filling in dates on calendars, calling loved ones, and singing songs of joy.  We have saved a bundle on first aid supplies.