The spirit of the holidays is about spending time with family and friends, being thankful for the things that we’ve accomplished and the lives we’ve led, and showing appreciation to everyone who has made the year possible. Sometimes the year ends on a high note, as we celebrate the achievements. Sometimes we simply want to turn the page on an otherwise difficult twelve months. For many, this year will seem more like the latter but it’s important to remember that as difficult as it was for you, chances are there were scores facing much tougher challenges.

It’s on this more somber note that I present to you the 2009 Holiday Tipping Guide, which hopefully will give you an idea of what is considered customary when it comes to showing appreciation to those in the services industry who have gone above and beyond. These are merely guidelines, it’s up to you to decide what makes sense for both your area and your own finances.

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I want to wish everyone a happy Labor Day! I hope you’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with friends and family, away from the rush of work or the concerns of money, and really enjoy the important things in life.

I did a little research on the origins of Labor Day and according to Wikipedia the holiday originated in Canada. The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated in 1882 in New York City. It wasn’t a federal holiday until after the 1894 Pullman Strike, but ever since then it’s been celebrated on the first Monday in September.

Either way, it’s shaping up to be a gorgeous day in many parts of the country so get out and enjoy the day off!

(Photo: valeriebb)

Bankrate had an article recently in which they recommended renting a home or condo to trim vacation costs. While I very much value the opinion of the fine folks at Bankrate, that’s good advice that’s about decades overdue.

At the very least, it’s five years overdue, because my friends and I have been doing this for at least that long. In fact, it was the topic of discussion one day at Meals on Wheels and when one of the other volunteers remarked that they had been renting vacation homes for decades.

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Tomorrow is July 4th. Independence Day. A day most often spent outdoors, with friends, playing games and having an old fashioned cookout.

My wife and I will be spending the day at our friend’s house, playing games and having an old fashioned cookout; then going up to their rooftop deck to watch the fireworks in the Baltimore harbor. Hopefully the weather holds up! My wife is a huge fan of fireworks so we’re hoping that they make them especially good this year.

I’m curious, what are your plans for this weekend?

(Photo by Mr. Magoo ICU)

Thank you to all the brave men and women of the Armed Services who made the greatest sacrifice so that we may enjoy the freedoms and liberties that come with being a citizen of the greatest country in the world. We owe you a debt of extreme gratitude as you are the ones who protect our our most unalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Thank You.

(Photo: respres)

Even though it’s January 9th, a full week removed from New Years and the holiday season, I didn’t really feel “back to normal” until sometime this week. So rather than launch into money related Your Take, I thought it might be more appropriate (and entertaining) to talk about something that would compel us to lock ourselves into an office or workshop or garage or whatever for 8+ hours a day and slave away: spending time with our family and friends. I’m curious what you did for the holidays, where you went, who you saw, and let us all bask in the enjoyment of your hearty tales.

As for my wife and I, we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her parents in Virginia opening presents and having a great time. From there, we had to drive home to Maryland (only about a forty five minute drive) because my wife had work go to work in the days between Christmas and New Years. The real travel didn’t begin until New Year’s Eve. For New Year’s Eve, we went up to Pittsburgh to see friends of our from college and celebrated the ringing in of the New Year at a club called Dolce, where we also saw the kicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Jeff Reed, and his entourage. Dude had bleached hair and looked like a Dragon Ball Z character. Anyway, that night of revelry became a morning and afternoon of misery as we drove the four hours down to Virginia for New Year’s Day dinner with my wife’s parents. That night, we drove the forty five minutes home to Maryland.

For those as good as I am with a calendar, it’s now January 2nd. An old friend of mine flew in from Los Angeles to visit her friend, who was studying at a Georgetown, and we met up with her for dinner at a Moroccan restaurant in Washington D.C. for a couple hours. On the way back, we visited with other friends who lived on the way home to see how their kid was doing (and met up with their cousins too).

Just when you thought the odyssey was complete, it wasn’t. The next day, we hopped on a plane to New York where we would meet up with my parents, a pair of aunts and uncles, and our cousins. We ate some great food, saw my parent’s new house for the first time with their stuff in it, and ate some great food. Then, this past Monday, we hopped on a 6:30 am flight (by the way, Southwest you need more than two people checking folks in during the holiday rush!), flew back home to Maryland, put in a full day of work, and then passed out.

Very tiring but well worth it!

How were your holidays?

(Photo: tambako)

Depending on when you read this, it’ll either be New Year’s Eve or New Year’s day (or some random day during the year!), but I wanted to wish you and yours a happy and prosperous new year. We’ve had a pretty rough 2008 but hopefully things can turn around in 2009!

If nothing else, be thankful you weren’t involved in the Madoff ponzi scheme!

We will be returning to your regularly scheduled programming on Monday, January 5th.

(Photo by Mr. Magoo ICU)

I know a lot of people will probably be on vacation or traveling or whatever today but I wanted to put something up for all the folks staying close to home and still poking around on the web. I didn’t want to make it too controversial or anything like that but still interesting both for me to comment about and for you all to enjoy commenting on too so I ask, what is your dream vacation?

I have three dream vacations, all of which I find equally exciting:

• African Safari: I just think it’s be wild to go on a safari, perhaps to Kruger National Park in South Africa, and just be out in the wilderness seeing first hand the types of stuff you see on the Discovery Channel.
• Cruise Around The World: A cruise, or just traveling around the world, and seeing different locations and lifestyles would be a lot of fun too. A cruise might be a little too structured and just wandering around might be a little too unstructured, but traveling the world in some fashion would be really exciting.
• Philanthropic Travel: This is kind of like traveling around the world but with more of a purpose and a more rewarding experience. Going someplace and helping out the community in some fashion, whether it’s to help build a school or repair things, something like this would have the excitement of travel with the rich and rewarding experience of helping others out in the process.

What is your dream vacation or vacations?

(Photo: jeffchristiansen)

I wanted to wish everyone a happy and safe holidays this year. It’s been a pretty hectic and stressful year but we’re nearing the end and hopefully the important things in your life, like your relationships with your family and friends, can be a guiding light in the chaos. At the end of the day, we do all this, all the investing, all the retirement planning, and all the long hours at work, so we can be financially stable and provide for our loved ones. We work so we can live, we don’t live so we can work. While it’s hard to see that when we have our heads down in June, racing towards the finish line so many months away, it’s much easier to do that over the holidays regardless of what you observe.

Turn off the blackberries, shut off the computer, kick off those boots, and hang up your jacket, it’s time to grab a beer (or a glass of wine or a cup of eggnog) and spend some time with the people who love you for who you are and not how much you add to the bottom line.

We’ll be taking the rest of the day and tomorrow off but be back on Friday with a lighthearted holiday Your Take, something I hope you’ll contribute to if you find yourself on the Interwebs on Friday. If not, I’ll see you all on Monday!

(Photo: ~BostonBill~)

I’ve never had a real Christmas tree before. I’ve always had artificial trees, the ones made of plastic and wire, and figured that most people did. While I don’t know the statistics but if the number of Christmas tree stores springing up on the side of major roads is any indication, I might actually be in the minority! Either way, I prefer artificial trees and here are five reasons why:

1. Nothing to chop down, pick up, or dispose of: You don’t need to hop into the car, go to a Christmas tree farm, select one, strap it to your roof, and then drive it home. While that is part of the fun of getting a Christmas tree, that’s also a pain to do. It’s also not as ecofriendly as getting an artificial tree since you’re chopping down a tree and then disposing of it somehow.
2. It’s cheaper: I picked up our current artificial tree on Craigslist for $20, which sure beats buying a real one each and every year (not including transportation costs.
3. It’s safer: If our Christmas tree gets too dry, the heat from the lights could cause it to catch fire. It’s a real problem, check out this US. Fire Administration page all about Christmas tree fires.
4. It’s reusable: I mentioned it earlier as part of the cost but it’s worth repeating because its reusability is one of the reasons why I think it’s so ecofriendly. Certainly plastic and wire are less friendly than actual wood, but you have to chop down a tree (then toss it) to get your real tree when the artificial one only needs to be made once.
5. It’s non-allergic: Lots of people are allergic to Christmas trees, hardly any are allergic to artificial ones! (unless you count dust)

If you celebrate Christmas, I’m curious, do you prefer real or “fake” Christmas trees? If you prefer the real ones, I’d really like to hear the pluses from someone who has had them and swears by them. I can see the benefits, but not having experienced them I would feel disingenuous trying to list them.

(Photo: scottfeldstein)