Holiday Entertaining Holiday season brings a relationship issue that most people don’teven realize — what to bring as a hostess gift. During this season,above all others, food is prevalent, and makes a great hostess gift– but you have to know the rules!* Never show up to a party or a dinner empty-handed. It’s badmanners and it’s […]

Parenting: How To Navigate the Holidays After A Divorce
Transitions are difficult in normal times. Add a holiday and complications abound. Here’s some advice for the following transitions:
A new divorce where there are children involved:
1. Abide by the court ordered custody schedule. Don’t pick now to make a custody fight. If you don’t like the […]

How to Find Last-Minute Childcare The best way to make sure you have last-minute child care is to plan ahead — make this a New Year’s Resolution!Here are four tips for setting up a back-up plan before you need it.1. Collect a pool of babysitters. Keep a file somewhere in your kitchen with this list […]

Etiquette: Regifting for the Holidays 
Who cares how a gift got there — it’s the thought that counts. Etiquette means grace, and re-gifting can be done gracefully. Here are some tip:
* Check the re-gift for tell-tale signs of the original gifter. Make sure there are no cards or engravings or inscriptions to you on the […]

What is and isn’t appropriate when dealing with gifts and exes during the holidays?
Giving and getting a gift from the ex depends on a couple of things:
* If you are married, you should not be getting gifts or giving gifts from an ex boyfriend or girlfriend. Furthermore, if you are single, you should not be […]

Photos have a lot to do with the owners of the photos — some people throw out any photos in which they don’t look good — or in which they don’t look the way the person wants to remember themselves or their loved ones.
I suggest saving ALL pictures — even the ones you hate — […]

People who have only just started celebrating Christmas — either because they have married someone who grew up celebrating Christmas, because they have chosen to celebrate Christmas “suddenly” of their own accord, or because they’ve chosen the path of least resistance in school, offices and communities, don’t have the family history of Christmas with the […]

Older… and Divorcing
Divorce in your twenties or thirties, and you may feel that the world is still your oyster. Bump that up a few years (or ten or twenty years), and you’re more likely to feel that your world is over…especially if you’re a woman who doesn’t have the advantage of being thought of as […]

How Marriage Affects Your Weight
Unfortunately, many women ‘get comfortable’ once they ‘get the man’—letting themselves go only to subsequently assume the position that ‘a man should love them for them’—not what they look like.  But herein lies the trouble with that one-sided attitude. Yes, the man may indeed ‘love you for you’, but he also […]

Inlaws
There’s only one key to handling in-laws, and it’s to lay the law down before problems ever arise. That means that the daughter or son-in law must start by not allowing meddling moms to interfere any more than they are welcome with the planning of the wedding, the decorating of the house, or the raising […]