Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times

Kathy Griffin was sitting in her tiny dressing room when one of her “people” presented her with a golden chalice.

But the ornate container wasn’t filled with Cristal Champagne or chocolate truffles. Griffin’s life on the D-list apparently means that her cup runneth over with pint-sized packages of peanut butter. And the chalice? It’s made of plastic.

“Well, aren’t I the big star?” she teased, shoving a spoonful of the peanut butter into her mouth in hopes of a protein boost.

The flame-haired 49-year-old comedian known for her acerbic humor — and her Bravo series “My Life on the D-List” — holds a nebulous place in the celebrity pecking order. She’s the star of a reality series in which she mocks stardom, while her own Hollywood life lends itself to plenty of material. Especially on this September day: Griffin was between two comedy sets at Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, which has been edited down into the one-hour Bravo comedy special “Kathy Griffin: Whores on Crutches” that will air Tuesday.

“I’m not doing Caesars. Palace — that’d be too easy,” she said backstage. “We’re doing it Temecula style and, frankly, I deserve an Emmy for the drive alone. You can’t come here unless you witness several accidents and get caught in several brush fires.”

As cameras flicker backstage, Griffin engages with fans, signing photos and even a catheter (she likes to call her Twitter followers “Katheters”). Despite the one-on-one attention she shells out, she remains absorbed in thought.

“I’m replaying the act in my head,” she said. “Trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t so I know whether I should start with the bit about Maggie [her mother] … or if I should mention Ryan Seacrest in the next show because I didn’t mention her [sic] in the last one?”

Griffith acquired her adaptability over a career dotted with periodic triumphs and frequent rejections. After high school, the Chicago native moved to Los Angeles and worked odd jobs while also working the audition scene. She landed bit parts on television, including appearances on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “The X-Files,” before eventually finding a more lasting gig as Brooke Shields’ feisty sidekick in the NBC sitcom “Suddenly Susan.”

But poking fun at the Hollywood elite is her favorite game. She’s filmed numerous stand-up specials — this one marks her eighth for Bravo. Two of them, “Kathy Griffin: Straight to Hell” (2008) and “Kathy Griffin: She’ll Cut a Bitch” (2009) were nominated for Emmys.

The specials are only one facet of her enduring relationship with Bravo, along with “My Life on the D-List,” which wrapped its sixth season earlier this summer.

“She peels off the layer of celebrity,” said Andy Cohen, senior vice president of original programming and development for the network, who isn’t exactly immune to Griffin’s comedic wrath. (She pokes fun at his “crossed-eyes” in the special.) “She’s very Bravo. Her observations about pop culture are just really spot on and we love being the home of her very uncensored, unfiltered act.”

The same rapid fire wit has been a frequent source of controversy. While co-hosting a red-carpet event for cable network E! in 2005, Griffin joked that Dakota Fanning, then 10, was in rehab; the network issued an apology shortly after. Her sarcastic comments about Jesus during an Emmy acceptance speech in 2007 had religious leaders fuming. Most recently, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) slammed the comedian for calling his two daughters prostitutes on her show.

Her wicked humor and lampoons of celebrities have also resulted in her being temporarily banned from talk shows including “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and “The View.”

“I can’t say I don’t enjoy getting under some people’s skin,” Griffin said. “I’m the poor man’s version of Joan Rivers. She’s a legend. I can only hope to insult people for as long as she has.”

In Tuesday’s special, Griffin warns, “I’m going to discuss things that should not be discussed in a tepee,” with Bristol Palin, Paris Hilton, Tiger Woods and “The View’s” Elisabeth Hasselbeck coming under fire.

“Howard Stern said this great thing to me one time,” she shared. “When you’re in this business, you can’t keep track of the crap you’ve said…. I’m nervous constantly and yet I can’t stop myself. I know I shouldn’t have told that Hasselbeck story because now I know I’ll never be on ‘The View’ again, but it’s toooo good.”

All it takes is a cheap notebook and some bullet points listing topical headlines to transform trite encounters into salacious stage fodder.

“Writing jokes is not my style,” Griffin said. “I’ll literally just write down ‘Bristol Palin’ and then I’ll riff for 15 minutes. It helps that I’m constantly tuned to news events, reality TV…. I can talk about it for hours.”

As Griffin analyzed her live set in retrospect, her brain was clearly moving at warp speed, pegging the opening — in which she appears with a Native American headdress — as “really strong cause it was visually funny and silly — it could be the commercial.” But she admits she didn’t hit her stride until much later in the act, when she blathered on about the VH-1 series, “The OCD Project.”

“It will be interesting if Bravo lets me keep all that stuff [in the televised special] because I talk about shows on other networks,” Griffin said. “But I felt the audience and I really kicked into high gear when I was talking about that show.”

The bit, which pokes fun at the over-the-top “treatment” offered on the series, made the final cut.

But, moments later, Griffin had shifted gears to a more important matter: She couldn’t fasten her belt buckle.

“Someone get Tiffany [Rinehart] now!” she said, referring to her assistant. The shout was not so much the demand of a diva as the plea of a panicky performer about to appear in front of a roomful of “disgruntled poker players who were probably given free tickets.”

Belt finally in place, Griffin prepared for her second grand appearance on stage.

She didn’t put on a fancy special occasion dress. But she did have special headware.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to put on my headdress,” she said. “I bet Joan Rivers has never had to say that.”

______________________________________

MY TAKE: Kathy G. is so funny she could make the dull life of a NY slip and fall lawyer or FCRA lawyers seem hilarious. I love the fact that she takes on everyone from the cheap Bronx construction lawyer that fixed her house up, the harassment lawyers form battleing networks, and the fact that she shuns fancy sequined evening dresses.

——————————————————————

Other Resources

Using Existing Rings for Measuring

One element of ring sizing that anyone who is getting a ring designed for a wedding must consider is that using an existing ring isn’t always the best way to make sure that titanium rings are sized the right way because it’s often the case that a gold ring of the same size will fit differently than a titanium ring. This is why it’s important to make sure that the measuring of such rings is done in such a way that a person’s finger is measured and an old gold ring isn’t used because this might result in an incorrect sizing.

New Businesses and Logos

When starting a new business it is often important to ensure that the company’s initial sales push is a successful one before a ton of effort is made regarding the branding campaign used for the company. When a company feels secure in its current customer base that various branding campaigns would be a good idea, it’s often a great plan to round up some personalized shirts because they are so long lasting as a type of mobile advertisement for a company. Personalizing items that will be used for a long time is one of the best ways to enhance a company’s brand reach.

Color of the Tiara

One of the misconceptions of using a wedding tiara is that it has to be something that looks like it would have sat atop a woman’s head in the earliest part of the twentieth century when she met people at an evening dinner, but today’s wedding tiaras can be vastly different from that design and will often showcase some rather beautiful styles which will usually provide a nice level of sophistication for a bride who wants a very modern look. Of course, there are also many classically styled tiaras out there as well for the bride who wants that sort of style.

Making Sure not to Double up on Dresses

One of the interesting things about wedding protocol is that the mother of the bride traditionally chooses her dress before the mother of the groom and usually after the mother of the bride dresses have been considered and one has been chosen, that style will be shared with the mother of the groom so that the mothers do not show up in clothing that’s too similar. It’s surprising how many mothers will actually choose the same sort of style without consulting one another and then end up at the wedding in dresses that are too similar.

Enjoying Halloween with an Infant

One of the best things about a new baby is all the first holidays that will be celebrated during the child’s first year of life. From the December holidays to Halloween celebrations, it can be fun to buy the first baby Halloween costumes for a new child. But the costumes for an especially young child don’t need to be complex or costly. Simply buying a hat that looks like a pumpkin and a t-shirt and pants that are covered in a Halloween themed design should be sufficient to create fun for any infant during the October holiday.

Repurposing Old Jewelry

The old jewelry sitting in a box at the top of the closet need not stay hidden forever. Old styles and designs always come back into fashion and it is possible there’s a piece sitting in that box that’s an extremely popular modern style. For example, a pair of stylish 14K gold bracelets that were worn decades ago might simply be in need of a professional cleaning and could be worn as a fashion statement showing how elegant jewelry designs of the past have been. A piece of jewelry worn by a parent or grandparent might have special meaning as well and be a great piece of retro ornamentation.

Remodeling Your Basement

Parker basements are a goldmine for anyone willing to reconsider building up. As populations increase, more and more builders are having trouble getting permits for adding on, so Denver Colorado basement refinishing is on the rise. Think about redoing your basement as an alternative to a second additon.

SOURCE: Associated Press

In a story that sounds as though it could have been lifted straight out of an episode of MTV’s “Punk’d,” celebrity couple Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore may have violated NCAA rules on behalf of the Iowa men’s basketball program.

The Des Moines Register reported Sunday that Iowa athletic officials have told the NCAA they allowed two recruits to meet Kutcher, Moore and ex-Hawkeye basketball stars Dean Oliver and Reggie Evans prior to a home football game last month.

Kutcher, an Iowa native and Hawkeyes fan and donor, is considered a representative of the university’s athletic interests, as are Oliver and Evans. The NCAA prohibits potential recruits from having any contact with such individuals as a result of the undue influence they could have on the recruiting process.

A juicy story like this one is sure to garner plenty of headlines over the next few days because of Kutcher and Moore’s involvement, but the truth is that these potential violations are not that big of a deal

Whether it’s North Carolina recruits playing pick-up games with Michael Jordan or former Ohio State receiver Cris Carter encouraging Seantrel Henderson to become a Buckeye, encounters between recruits and celebrity alums happen all the time. The vast majority of these infractions either go unreported or become secondary violations, which provide only minimal recruiting or competitive advantage and typically carry only minor consequences. 

Documents obtained by the Register block out the names of the two recruits involved in the potential violations at Iowa, but a quick Internet search reveals the two were likely guards Josh Oglesby and Marcus Paige. Oglesby, who committed to new Iowa coach Fran McCaffery in late September, previously told IlliniHQ.com that he was excited to meet Kutcher during the Iowa-Iowa State football game he attended on his official visit.

“He was cool,” Oglesby said. “You know, some of those actors or actresses might just say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ But he just sat there and talked your ears off.”

______________________________________

MY TAKE: I don’t know if this is the first negative story I’ve ever heard about this couple, but between them they can seem to do no wrong. She seems to be ageless. Not that I guess I get the implications however, and it’s proabably no more appropriate for Kutcher to be waving US Marine corps flags at football games for Navy. Or waving Texas flags at an Iowa State conference. But actually, it all seems about as superfulous as wondering whether their property management is taking care of their homes. Or, if their Costa Del Sol properties are rented out to Iowa state co-eds in off season.

——————————————————–

Other Resources

Need Coverage?

Monmouth County Fraud lawyer advice is not cheap. Be sure you know your rights before hiring a Manasquan NJ traffic tickets lawyer, or any lawyer for that matter, including divorce lawyers in Austin Texas. No one gets anything for free, so when you retain a Georgetown TX family law attorney, for example, you can bet that he or she will be billing you for every second they work for you, whether it’s in an e-mail or a fax or a phone call.

Cited: The New York Times

“Living well is the best revenge,” is an ad slogan launched for B & B by the makers of Bénédictine liqueur back in the 1980s. Now there is a new drink that blends Bénédictine with orange bitters and champagne.

Bénédictine, which celebrates its 500th anniversary in 2010, has done both: It has lived well, having evolved from a bitter medicine formulated by French monks into a fancy-schmantzy after-dinner liqueur, and crammed two or three lives into its half-millennium history. Its latest life — as a rediscovered component in haute cocktails — is currently unfolding, particularly in New York City, where craft bartenders have latched onto the liqueur in much the same way they’ve taken up Chartreuse, another herbal, monastery-derived liqueur.

“It’s got serious street cred,” said Damon Dyer, a bartender at Louis 649 in the East Village, “and brings a certain something-something to a drink.”

That certain something-something comes from a blend of 27 herbs and spices that a monk named Dom Bernardo Vincelli distilled in 1510 at a Bénédictine monastery in Fécamp, France, in Normandy. Dom Vincelli’s Elixir, as it was called then, was a hit until the French Revolution, when the monastery was destroyed. In a Dan Brown-worthy plot twist, the recipe was lost until an art collector and wine merchant named Alexander Le Grand discovered it within a trove of old books he bought in 1863. After toying with the recipe, Le Grand began selling the elixir as Bénédictine — for pleasure, this time, rather than for medicinal reasons.

It was a minor player in the United States until the 1930s, when a brushfire of a drink called a B & B — equal parts Bénédictine and brandy, created at the “21” Club — swept the nation. The Le Grand family’s response was to bottle the cocktail itself, mixing Cognac with the liqueur and selling it as B & B.

B & B still outsells Bénédictine nine to one in the United States, according to a company spokesman, but it is the original undiluted product that has lately been stoking the curiosity of bartenders. As Mr. Dyer put it, “I don’t want my peanut butter and jelly in the same jar, you know?”

A little advice for those who partake of these new or old drinks . . . As a former Deputy District Attorney, these Redwood City CA criminal lawyers have an advantage over other attorneys who do not have a similar background. Ultimately, there experience could help you avoid jail time and expensive fines. These Redwood City CA criminal attorneys can help as only a successful and knowledgeable criminal lawyer can against charges of domestic violence, shoplifting, traffic violations, burglary, drunk driving and other criminal offenses.

Mr. Dyer showcases it in a drink he calls a Monte Cassino, in which he mixes equal parts Bénédictine, lemon juice, yellow Chartreuse and 100-proof Rittenhouse rye whiskey. “I wanted to take a complex ingredient like Bénédictine and make a simple drink out of it,” he explained. “No bitters or esoteric infusions or egg whites or any other silliness.” Cocktail aficionados familiar with a cult drink called a Last Word will recognize the template here: a round, earthy cocktail in which a whole gamut of flavors — bitter, herbal, sweet, sour, spicy — are eerily balanced.

The moral of the story, according to Mr. Dyer: “We don’t always need to reach for the newest, shiniest, flashiest-labeled product on the shelf. Shiny and new aren’t always better.”

Served at the rooftop lounge of André Balazs’s Standard Hotel is a simpler and more celebratory option called the Benediction, which is a half shot of Bénédictine in a champagne flute with a dash of orange bitters and topped off with Champagne. Another similarly festive drink called the Wisco Country Club is served at the Joseph Leonard on Waverly Place. This one is very similar in the fact that it uses orange bitters and is topped with champagne; however the remainder is 1 ounce of gin, 1 ounce of fresh grapefruit juice shaken with 3/4 ounce of Bénédictine. Sometimes the old is as good as the new.

———————————

My Take: I am not a big drinker so I really am not interested in liquor. Besides, I am just a little fashion and believe that if you want to get drunk just drink a shot. It gets you drunk faster and it is cheaper. However, if you do get drunk and fall down might want to cut to a personal injury attorney Denver CO to find out if you have a case because if you fail because of something wrong with the building, it may not have been your fault.

On the other hand, it is not smart to drink and drive because then you will need a criminal lawyer. Because depending on the situation, you could be looking at some jail time and nobody wants that. Of course, if you are on the West Coast you would need to talk to personal injury lawyers. Then again, if you are so drunk that you run from the cops when they try to pull you over you may need criminal attorneys instead.

Drinking in excess leads to many problems, not only can you get tickets, you can lose your family, which means you would need a divorce lawyer Denver, business and yourself. That is why I believe you should not drink more than 2 drinks at any given time. That is enough to help you relax and give you enough brain function to get home before you make a big mistake.

———————————

Other Resources

Ladies Night out

Getting married? Planning a Las Vegas bachelorette party? These bachelorette packages are also great for birthday parties or just a limousine night out on the town. All bachelorette packages include transportation back to your hotel.  Ladies, this is your time to shine. These exclusive limousine bachelorette party packages will have you looking and feeling like Las Vegas superstars. The limos can provide transportation up to 25 passengers. Las Vegas is the #1 spot for bachelor/bachelorette parties. Several bachelor/bachelorette party packages are offered to accommodate every party budget. The packages also include Las Vegas Hummer limousines that transport you back to your hotel.

Cited: The New York Times

What does a good, compassionate and environmentally conscious guy like Dan Nainan to do on Christmas? The first problem was the Christmas tree. “You cut down a tree and you’re going to throw it out in three weeks,” he said. “If you get a plastic tree, you’re wasting petroleum.”

Then there was the whole matter of buying gifts. “I think it’s great that people are going out and buying things and helping the economy,” he said. But when a Wal-Mart employee can be trampled to death in a manic dash for holiday bargains, as happened last year, “that kind of crystallized everything for me.”

The answer: Skip it. The whole holiday, no tree, no stockings, carols or any of the “whole nine yards” of trappings and traditions that Mr. Nainan said his family has always laid on.

“Instead of buying stuff for people who don’t need it and will probably return it anyway, I’m going to take all the money that I would have spent on presents, find some needy people — not a charity — and give the money directly to them,” said Mr. Nainan, 28 years old and single, who, belying his earnestness and world-saving inclinations, is a professional comedian. He planned to spend Christmas Day working on his Web site, trolling Facebook and taking an elderly woman who lives in his Manhattan apartment building out for dinner.

This has been a year for paring back Christmas. Largely by economic necessity, many people have been trimming their gift lists, subduing their celebrations and aiming for a simpler, lower-key holiday.

But some, like Mr. Nainan, are taking that sentiment to the extreme. For them, this is the year of the anti-Christmas, the year when everything — from the pressure to find the perfect present to the prospect of family drama over roast turkey — just got to be too much.

In response, they are opting out of the festivities entirely. This year, they are taking a holiday from the holiday.

“W.W.B.J.D.?” (What would baby Jesus do?) asked Richard Laermer. “Sit it out.”

Mr. Laermer, a media consultant and the author of “2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade,” and his partner of 20 years have long celebrated Christmas elaborately. But 2009 was so disappointing economically, politically and spiritually, he says, that the holidays aren’t worth celebrating. The couple will spend Christmas Day watching “I Dream of Jeannie” episodes on DVD and taking dips in their pool in La Quinta, Calif.

One year ago today, Pepper Hill was preparing to host her annual Christmas Eve open house. Her Atlanta home was decked in lights. Her Christmas tree was beautiful. Twenty minutes before the guests were due, she had a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.

“Wow,” she said to herself. “I can never do this again.”

Ms. Hill, a 50-year-old voice-over actress, said she had been feeling a spiritual drift away from Christmas for several years. And yet, each December she continued to go through the motions of sending out holiday cards, decorating the house, buying gifts. This year as December approached, she wondered if she’d have the nerve to shun the rituals that had always been a part of her life.

She did. “It was so liberating!” she said.

On Christmas morning, Ms. Hill and her husband were planning to wake up in their Christmas-tree-free home, get in the car, drive to a mountain and go for a hike. They hope they won’t see another soul on the trail. They’ll have breakfast at one of those chains along the Interstate, probably the only culinary option open on Christmas Day in Georgia. In the afternoon, they’ll go to the movies. She wants to see the new Meryl Streep film, “It’s Complicated.” Then — because we all know that, whether you celebrate it or not, Christmas can be a long day — they’ll probably stay for a second movie (“Maybe something heavy like ‘A Single Man,’ ” she said).

For those who would like to see a movie in the leisure of their home or go to a theater . . . One vendor offers an unbeatable selection of the best Theater tickets available, whether you are looking to buy U2 tickets, or discount tickets to your favorite Theater event. They offer exceptional customer service and hold their responsibility to provide their customers with a fun, secure and satisfying online Theater, sports, R & B tickets shopping experience. If you do not want to go out, you could Download science fiction movies online. You can get unlimited 24/7 movie downloads with no time limits, no bandwidth limits and no content limits like “Avatar“.

Though Ms. Hill’s transformation may be dramatic, there are indicators that Christmas revelry in general may be slipping among the population at large. The Christmas Spirit Foundation, a charity that provides holiday assistance to needy children and sends Christmas trees to military families, has been examining people’s plans for the holidays for the last five years. This year’s survey, conducted by the polling firm Harris Interactive, found that while 95 percent of households plan to celebrate Christmas (about the same as every year), the percentage of families who plan to exchange gifts is dropping: 77% this year, down from 85% in 2005. Slightly fewer people said they were going to attend parties or listen to Christmas music, too.

Another organization hired Harris to conduct a different type of Christmas poll — this one on holiday stress. The survey, commissioned by Breakthrough at Caron, a residential program for adults suffering from drug and alcohol addiction as well as dysfunctional family situations, found holiday stress to be almost universal —90% of respondents said they suffered from it — but that this year the feeling was amplified. Thirty-eight percent of the people polled said they expected to feel more anxiety this holiday season than last. Most blamed the economy, but 77% also cited family conflicts.

“There’s a lot of pain associated with Christmas,” said Hank Stuever, the author of a new book, “Tinsel: A Search for America’s Christmas Present,” which follows the Yuletide preparations of three families in a sprawling Dallas suburb over three consecutive years, 2006 to 2008. “There’s a lot of joy, too. You’re supposed to be happy — thank you, Charles Dickens — and when you aren’t, you feel bad.”

Mr. Stuever said he has been struck by how many people approach him after readings of his book asking for advice on “ramping down Christmas.” He said he has counseled many to think about taking a break from the holiday for a year to rethink what it means to them. “Sometimes you need to control-alt-delete Christmas,” he said, to build it back up into something more meaningful. Following his own advice, he and his partner were planning to fly on Christmas from their home in Washington to Los Angeles, and ignore Christmas entirely. “I promised Michael a tinsel-free Christmas,” he said.

Skip to next paragraph

Certainly Hollywood has clued in. In recent years the movie industry has saved some of its biggest releases for Christmas Day, recognizing that the classic Jewish practice of going to the movies on Dec. 25 is catching on with gentiles looking for a break from conversing with relatives, assembling toys or consuming the chocolate Santa’s that happen to be lying around.

Another American Jewish tradition, going out for Chinese food on Christmas, may have crossover appeal as well. A few years ago, Claire Rigodanzo, a lifelong Catholic, took her extended family to Ming’s, a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto, Calif., for its annual Christmas Day comedy show (always a sold-out event) aimed at a Jewish crowd. The name of the show: ChopShticks. “It was really fun,” she said. “We’d definitely do it again.”

But that involves family togetherness — something Krista Rogers is trying to minimize this Christmas.

Growing up, her family made a big deal of Christmas. But over the years, she says general “strife and issues” began to get in the way.

Her mother and her three siblings — and their spouses and children — live nearby, in Denver. Ms. Rogers has no children; her husband has two grown sons.

“I feel like we get invited because they feel sorry for us,” she said. “You feel like you’re intruding on their Christmas and I feel bad about that.”

Ms. Rogers, 46, said she would go to a Christmas Eve church service because the religious aspect of the holiday remains important to her, and afterward stop by her mother’s and older sister’s home with some gifts. But for the first time, she’s declined all family invitations for Christmas Day.

Instead, she and her husband plan to drive eight hours to the Grand Canyon, where she’s never been. “We’ll do some hiking and sit in the hot tub.” They’re taking wine and their own wineglasses. “We’ll sit in our room and enjoy the view and have a unique Christmas. And not feel guilty about it.”

For Renata Rafferty, a 53-year-old philanthropy adviser, a life change prompted the decision to sit out Christmas this year. In October, her husband of 21 years died. In this, her first Christmas “as the Widow Rafferty,” she said, “I decided not to stress myself by conforming to some tyranny of the ‘shoulds of.’ ”

Her mother and sister invited her to Florida for Christmas but she politely declined. “My mother is a lovely woman, but she embodies holiday stress,” Ms. Rafferty said.

“Maybe next year I’ll know what I’m ‘supposed’ to do,” she said. “But for now, I’m looking forward to stripping on Christmas.”

This decision was made after Ms. Rafferty recently moved to a new home, in Evansville, Ind., and it has “some really hideous wallpaper.” This means her decision is to spend Christmas Day stripping wallpaper and making something new on Christmas.

———————————

My Take: This is not a new idea! It is something that poor people have been doing for years. It is just that the tough economic times have caused other people to experience financial problems. As a child, I remember having a small Christmas tree with fake under it. As an adult, I realize that Christmas is more for the children than for adults.

Do not get me wrong, I think Christmas is the best time of the year and I still love a Christmas tree with presents under it. But, adult who have no children are conserving their finances this year or putting the money to a different use. Some adults are taking cheap flights to visit family and others are playing play online poker. There are still those who hunt down group travel just because of Christmas and are willing to fight the crowds at airports to spend Christmas with family. More power to them.

I will admit that online casino gambling is not a real Christmas time event, but it can be fun and different. It can also be more expensive than the regular Christmas season. I like the ideas in this article that show people doing something different and for themselves. Some people have decided to help others during the rough times and some are just conserving their finances.

———————————

Other Resources