Helpful Hints for Navigating the Holidays The holidays are upon us once again, so I thought this would be an ideal time to review some of the common problems people experience during the holidays as well as some tips for coping ...
Holiday Coping Tips I thought I'd write a few words about the holidays and the blues, because this is the time of the year people commonly experience feelings of depression, sadness, and loss when many others are enjoying ...
The Gift of Giving My daughter was shocked. “Mom,” she reported in one of those breathless cell phone calls she makes as she rushes across campus. “There’s a girl in my dorm whose family has a rule that gifts ...
In Defense of Thank-You Notes “But Mom, nobody writes thank you notes anymore. But Mom, Gramma was here when I opened it and I said thank you then. But Mom, I can e-mail her. But Mom, it’s bor-ing! But Mom, ...
Ho-Ho-Ho-Holiday (Office) Parties: Bah Humbug? It’s one of those little secrets. A majority of people either hate office holiday parties or simply don’t care about them. Yet year after year, people dress up for an evening of socializing with people ...
December Festivals: A Celebration of Diversity Companies spend millions of dollars on diversity training to help workers become more sensitive to each other's cultures, traditions, and practices. School boards now regularly struggle with the tension between wanting to celebrate the holiday ...
12 Tips to Keep Joy in the Holidays
The Christmas season is upon us once again, and once again we find ourselves balancing between our work or studies, hanging out friends, scheduling time ...
Overeating: It’s All In Your Head The following is an excerpt from the book Three Minute Therapy and focuses on the topic of overeating and how cognitive-behavioral techniques can be used to help a person overcome this concern.
They say that inside ...
Post-Winter Holidays: Hibernation or Depression? The holiday season is just about over. The presents are unwrapped. The relatives have left. The leftovers are almost gone. Some things went well. Some didn’t. There were moments of pleasure and joy and moments ...
Happy New Year, for Auld Lang Syne. New Year's Eve, in much of the English speaking world, is a time of celebration. People ring in the New Year with parties, fancy dress, streamers, noise makers, and champagne. Rowdy crowds gather late at ...
Holiday Travel with Young Kids It's the time of year when many families take to the road, going home for the holidays. It's the time of year when my inbox is full of letters seeking advice for how to stay ...
Simplifying the Holidays Do you want to manage the holidays with less stress? Simplify!
Magazine covers trumpet feature titles like: “More love, less stress.” “Ten Ways to Make Decorating Easy.” “Keep it Beautiful. Make it ...
Special Occasions and Special Needs Kids Here come the holidays. For many parents with special needs kids, here comes more stress. No matter how many times you have tried to explain the special needs of your special child, the extended family, ...
Rx for Mental Health: Send Holiday Cards! It’s easy to get cynical about holiday cards. There certainly is a lot of pressure to send them for all the wrong reasons: Because the person sent one to us. Because it is a way ...
The Pain of Losing Your Faith Our faith -- whether a religious conviction, a commitment to human rights, or another set of deeply-held beliefs -- informs many of our life choices. So what happens when we lose these guiding principles?
Although ...
Holiday Traditions
"But we always have mixed nuts at Thanksgiving!"
"But we always have turkey for Christmas dinner!"
"But we always have the youngest child open the first Hanukkah present (this protested by the youngest)!"
"But we always go to ...
Celebrating Safely with Alcohol For many families, drinking alcohol is a way to celebrate something. The good cheer of the holiday season is liberally laced with wine. We use champagne and liquor to show our happiness at weddings and ...
Halloween Safety Tips for Parents If a visitor from outer space were observing our town during the last few days of October, I’m sure it would be ...
More Coping with Holiday Stress Tips The holidays can be fun, but they also can be a source of great stress — and no wonder. The holidays are often depicted as a magical time when people reconcile and dreams come true.
How ...
10 Things You Can Do Differently Today Every year at about this time, magazines, newspapers and websites (including ours!) publish their usual articles on how to keep your New Year's resolutions. We all seem to forget that many people -- perhaps even ...
Getting to the Heart of Holiday Gifting The annual December hype around buying and exchanging gifts doesn't usually include an in-depth discussion of the tact and ritual of gift giving. Stores just want to get us inside their doors and buying. Advertisers ...
Holiday Baking: A Recipe for Family Fun or Frustration? When I was a girl, my mother would spend the weeks before Christmas making dozens upon dozens of different kinds of Christmas cookies. There were drop cookies, refrigerator cookies, decorated cutouts and bars. There were ...
The Christmas Limit A couple of years ago, I celebrated the holidays for the first time with my husband’s parents. They bought me a beautiful (not to mention expensive!) silver necklace wrapped in a gorgeous gift box. Imagine ...
