THANKSMAS - Try it for your family!

It can be challenging to decide where to spend the Thanksgiving, and Christmas, holiday. If you have a large family with several siblings, you may be pulled apart by more than one sibling hosting the holiday at their home. If you are married or dating, you may be arguing over whose family you'll visit ON the actual holiday. For any number of reasons, people often find themselves torn over where to be for these holidays, and it is stressful. All too often people don't get to completely enjoy the holiday day itself because they leave one place and drive to another, trying to meet their obligations with each family or family member. I have a friend whose parents are divorced and every year the father gives her a hard time about leaving and going to her mom's, and vice versa. This does not make for a happy holiday.

Now, add in another holiday challenge --- TRAVEL. If you fly or drive ON Thanksgiving wkend or Christmas week -- it can be really NOT FUN. Flights get changed or delayed. And they cost more. So do rental cars. Airports are packed with people. Ho Ho Ho - is this merry and bright? I think not. About 10 years ago, I was flying with my man Dan up to Washington DC where my nephew would pick us up and drive us to my parents house in PA. This was the evening before Thanksgiving. But that flight got cancelled and the best choice was a flight to Pittsburgh but now we'd have to rent a car, and we'd be getting in pretty late. No way to reach my nephew -- back then it wasn't a given that you all had cell phones. He had already left to get us. I was a wreck over it.

We land in PGH and the only rental car left is a Cadillac and so you have to pay for that level of rental, even though you would gladly have taken a compact. So at $79 a day we are finally on our way. It starts snowing, traffic is slow, it is getting late and I know I have missed the evening meal and by now my parents are getting ready for bed. We are still an hour away. We pull into a diner and I just sat and bawled in the car. I was frustrated and upset over our travel woes. I said to myself, "Never Again."

For 10 years now, I choose a weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I rent a big house with 6 or 7 bedrooms -- you'd be amazed at how many of these vacation homes there are! I choose one in Maryland or PA and it's always affordable. (One year I did Cape May New Jersey and that was cool!).  Then I invite all my siblings, their spouses/significant others, and my parents. Nieces and nephews too of course.

We all come together for THANKSMAS WEEKEND and we celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday and Christmas on Sunday. It is merry, fun, festive, and not stressful.  This way, everyone gets to be in their own home on the actual holidays, and only travel to someone else's house if they really want to and are willing to brave the traffic and the headaches. Different people bring different foods -- someone takes breakfast, someone takes lunch, someone does the turkey and someone else does the side dishes - it is great.

I highly recommend this wonderful family solution for the holiday season. After all, it's not the actual DATE that makes it Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's the feelings, the smells, the food, the family, the togetherness. The traditions, the ambience created by family items brought out every year, and candles lit.  Happy, Happy Thanksgiving everyone -- and a wonderful, warm December!
Love  P-

My First Blog! Happy to be alive!

Hi! Thanks for being here~! As I set up my blog, my initial thought was "What should be the topic of my first blog—what is most important for me to relay?"  I wasn't sure. Then as this box popped up for me to begin writing, it came to me.  Write a message of thanks. Share your gratitude for your business, your friends and supporters, your followers (my Peeps :),  for the Internet and the means to communicate so freely and easily… something countless others do not have.

We all take our modern conveniences for granted, at least most of the time. Imagine a day when you could not text or e-mail anyone—when to share a photo you had to order extra prints and mail them.!! When the glove box in your car was used to store gloves because cars did not have heat. We've come a long way. Technology amazes me—especially because I have a colorful, creative type of mind and no grasp of how high-tech things work.

My first job after graduating college was with a public relations agency as a writer. From there I became a writer and proofreader at an advertising agency. At these jobs, there were no computers. Now I sit every day for 8 to 10 hours a day working on my Mac and thinking "What would I do if I couldn't use the computer?"  I absolutely love my computer and my iphone.  I'm Linus --  my phone is the blanket. !
:-)

I feel appreciative—nearly every day—for the resources and wealth of tools and accessories that I have for both my business and my daily life.   As my sister who travels to Third World countries and volunteers aid to the needy tells me—"Your worst day is still better than their best day. A day that you are busy and don't get to eat and feel hunger pangs—you still don't feel as hungry as they feel".
When your computer is down or your car breaks or your back aches, you think you have it bad.  But you are still 100 times better off than the people she sees.  I must remember this, and I share it with you not to preach at you, but to put the contentment in your heart --  to put the gratitude into your day --  so that the stresses of your life are put into perspective.

I will write my blog posts with gratitude in my heart for every one of my readers and for every success in my business. And I will even be thankful when I don't get that project or pick up that new client— because I know at the end of the night I have a soft comfy bed to sleep in and a refrigerator full of food, and tomorrow—my phone will ring with some other opportunity.  I look forward to helping people with this blog by sharing good information.

I'll start by offering a free guide to South Florida. If you are looking for sincere recommendations and reviews for restaurants, bars, and hotels—my JustAskPriscilla.com website provides that for you. Rather than do an Internet search and see reviews, testimonials and posts that are based on advertising and have been paid for, you can view my website and know that information there is from my head and my heart and is provided for no purpose other than to give you good advice. Until next time…
P-