NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

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Thursday, November 10, 2011

It’s Not Too Late. Another completely OT post.

Okay, you still have time. Stand up. Revolt. Take the holidays back from media hoards who tell you what you should be eating, drinking, and wearing. Who you should invite to your home and what a loser you are if you don’t do what they (the media hoards) say. Examine Thanksgiving. A time to be grateful for the blessings of the past year and to enjoy each other. NOT worry about whose home you will go to or how much you need to cook. Take those hours you would spend cooking and have some real quality time with you family. Go to a park and have a picnic or spread out a blanket on the living room floor in front of a fire. If you must have turkey, roast turkey franks. Or, get take out from a squat and gobble. Instead of pumpkin pie chuck pumpkins. Volunteer at a homeless shelter, or the animal shelter. Let you inner child lose and do what you want to do. Which Thanksgiving memory do you think the kids will remember? The one where they sit at the table snarffing down the food in forty-five minutes that it took you ten hours to cook or the time mom went crazy and served turkey dogs?
Christmas? Instead of decorating the day after Thanksgiving because everyone in the neighborhood does, wait to the week before Christmas. Try celebrating the way another country does. At the very least have the kids research how other children celebrate. Put a cap on spending. It isn’t about thirty minutes of ripping and tearing, at least it isn’t for me. It’s about being together and having fun. Here’s a good one. For you folks in the colder climes. Have a down-under or Hawaiian Christmas. Turn the thermostat up high as it will go. Relax, it’s only for a few hours. Everyone wears shorts and Hawaiian shirts. Turn a fan on for a cool breeze. Instead of eggnog it’s Mai Tais. Or eggnog with little umbrellas.
What I’m saying is keep the holiday stress free for YOU.

14 comments:

Maureen A. Miller said...

Gosh, Rita. I'll try to keep it stress free. I'll really try. If only the holidays didn't involve travel, then it would be less stressful.

Rita said...

Eeep! TRAVEL??? Plane, train, bus car?

Maureen A. Miller said...

Car. Ten hours, which inevitably ends up being 12 hours. Happy Holidays! :)

Maureen A. Miller said...

I should add (ever the Pip) I sing the whole way!

Rita said...

can you say audio books?

Toni Anderson said...

God, I'm all for an Hawaiian Christmas :) There were peeps with their Christmas trees decorated inside their homes a couple of weeks ago here. I think they're are bonkers.

Toni Anderson said...

(((Little Mo)))

Anne Marie Becker said...

LOL, Rita - LOVE the Hawaiian-themed Thanksgiving. Especially the Mai Tais. We're cooking at my house and taking it to my mother's across town. I'll be doing our favorite traditional dishes, but you can bet I'll be indulging in Mai Tais (or cosmos) by nightfall! ;) (Hmmm... or maybe a coconut margarita - love those!)

Wynter said...

I like your rant! And I like the anti-stress holiday idea of ditching my in-laws. Darn, then I'd piss off my other half. Give me time and I'll think of a way!

Rita said...

Toni, I about had a heart attack when my favorite radio station started playing Christmas music last week. I can't imagine Christmas decoration up already. That's just wrong.

Rita said...

Anne Marie, slip somethign different in. Make everyone wonder about your sanity and give yourself a giggle

Rita said...

Wynter i can't wait to hear what you come up with

Anne Marie Becker said...

I thought of you today when I drove by a sign for a new Hawaiian BBQ place. Whatever that is, it sounds yummy. Think they're open on Thanksgiving? LOL

Rita said...

Anne Marie
Roasting a pig in the ground? Only kind Hawaiian BBQ I know

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