Tag Archives: Christmas

Holidays

Posted on December 24, 2012 | 4 comments

To All My Liberal, Democrat Friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2013, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

 

To My Conservative, Republican Friends:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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Season’s Greetings

Posted on December 24, 2011 | 6 comments

To My Liberal, Democrat Friends and Family:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To My Conservative, Republican Friends and Family:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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The 12 Days Of Christmas

Posted on December 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

Christmas is more expensive this year.  3.5% more expensive:

Giving the holiday presents of a French hen, a milking maid, a leaping lord or even a partridge in a pear tree is rather unlikely in this day and age. But the gifts from the favorite holiday carol “The 12 Days of Christmas” are lighthearted clues to how the economy is faring.

Over all, prices are fairly stable and not rising precipitously for even the quirkier gifts, according to the Christmas Price Index released for the 28th year by PNC Wealth Management, part of the PNC Financial Services Group. On the down side, the price tag for the eye-popping 364 items and services in each of the song’s verses breaks $100,000 for the first time this year.

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Gold, for example — as in the five golden rings — has fallen in price. Those rings (fairly lightweight ones, one would think) come to $645, down from $649.95 last year. Even though gold commodities, an investor haven, have been hovering at record highs recently, the demand for gold at retail has been weakening.

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Unsurprisingly, labor costs remained fairly flat. The nine ladies dancing, for example, remained static, at $6,294, the same as last year, according to figures from Philadanco, a dance company in Philadelphia. The 11 pipers piping, at a price of $2,427.60, and 12 drummers drumming, for $2,629.90, were up modestly, about 3 percent. The only unskilled laborers in the verses are the eight maids-a-milking, who are calculated as earning the $7.25 minimum hourly wage. That wage did not rise in 2011 for the second straight year, so their cost stayed the same.

The price tag for one round of gifts is $24,263.18 this year, up $823.80 from last year. Repeating the gifts totaled slightly more than $101,000, a gain of 4.4 percent, also close to the federal price index.

It would be fun to “gift” the 12 days of Christmas one year.

 

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