"stress management" news and stories

For many of us going "home" for the holidays means ill-fitting gift shirts, drug store chocolate, eggnog spiked with bourbon, abusive grandparents, drunken tears, broken glass, the wail of sirens commingling with Xmas carols, blackouts, stunned girl or boyfriends gaping in mute horror at our ancestral home decor, and nonstop football on television.

Isn't it amazing that a simple few items of nutrition can make this sort of trauma pass like it was a summer night under the stars with the Philharmonic and a loved one by your blanket? Sound too amazing to be true? It isn't, dear friends, gather 'round. I've learned the key to holiday survival, which is to assume that wherever you go, no one will understand your culinary needs. You will need to bring all your weird herbs and foods with you, in little marked packets, for your relatives to make fun of.