Freelance Consultant's Diary

We can only speculate but this hypothetical question definitely makes us all think. I have to admire the marketing strategists who have done a terrific job in associating Christmas (and for that matter almost all holidays all the way from Memorial/Columbus/4th of July Day to Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving ) with shopping. I wouldn't be surprised if future generations might even not realize that Christmas originally was a day to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ, and thus, a time to reflect on his message of love and peace. To the best of my knowledge (I am not a Christian and have only limited knowledge of the Bible), there is no mention of shopping or even exchanging gifts in the Bible. The story of Santa Claus comes much later and it was all about helping the poor, and certainly not about giving yet another sweater or tie to someone who already has 10. I am really not expecting that our shopping patterns will change in any way due to this movie (they better not ...

If you don't like the idea of reading those articles about how not to gain weight during the holidays , then you just need to remember one simple thing: eat in moderation . It is OK to eat almost everything as long as you keep the overall calorie consumption during the day unchanged. If you still want to eat more calories, you can burn the extra calories by exercising more than usual. And as I said about Thanksgiving side dishes , here is a nice video to try a slightly different set of dessert recipes.

One of the easiest ways to celebrate Thanksgiving is to simply stick to the rulebook and do what has been done for ages, but when you make minor changes in your menu or how the day plays out, you are putting your personal stamp on the holiday. As far as we are concerned, we always need to make minor changes in our menu to take care of our friends and family members who are increasingly either vegans or vegetarians plus our reluctance to eat turkey for the rest of the year. If you want to stick to the traditions, that is fine too, but one of the simplest things to personalize your holiday is to try a new side dish. Here are some great recipes to try.

We love the idea of watching movies as a family but it is rather sad that so many family movies have way too much violence. I wonder if these movies can actually be made in two versions: one for adults and then an edited version for the kids. While this is a great movie, we thought that parts of the movie could be scary for young kids - so I suggest that the parents watch it first and then decide how to prepare their kids for it and how to watch with them. They will love it but some of the horror is rather unexpected. Alan Parrish (played by Robin Williams) finds a board game (Jumanji) and decides to play it with a friend Sarah Whittle without really knowing what it was. Very soon unexpected things happen and without warning Alan disappears into thin air and Sarah is chased out of the house by scary looking bats. 26 years later, two other kids in the same house (Judy Shepherd played by Kirsten Dunst and her brother Peter played by Bradley Pierce) play the same game after they fin...

I became a fan of Aitana Sanchez Gijon after watching her in Femme de Chambre du Titanic and that was the sole reason I chose to watch Boca a Boca (Mouth to Mouth). It stars Javier Bardem (who plays the role of Victor Ventura, a struggling actor) who takes a job as a phone sex operator to pay his bills before he appears for a casting call for a Hollywood movie . He ends up answering a phone call from a plastic surgeon (Bill or Ricardo played by Josep Maria Flotats) who is a down-low man (people like Ted Haggard who are supposedly happily married to a woman but are secretly gay ) and in his desperate attempt to make as much money as possible, he makes Bill think that they are in love. But Victor is actually in love with Bill's wife Amanda (played by Aitana Sanchez Gijon) who sleeps with him to take revenge on her husband . The plot gets complicated after that and I will not give you any more details but you have to wait till the end to figure out who was trying to kill who ...