Holiday craziness is a great reason to skip workouts. This year, to make sure I get in regular exercise, I've lined up some workout buddies who don't want to hear any excuses.

Chrismukkah's so new it's got a lot of catching up to do. Some people still haven't even heard of it. Aside from “Oy to the World! A Klezmer Christmas,” and

Eat, drink, and be queasy. That might have been the motto for Matt’s Christmas Eve menu. From the hackelback caviar seafood timbales to the flaming ginger pudding, it was an exercise in excess. I guess it was a smashing success by Oscar Wilde’s standards.

As a kid who was raised half secular Jew and half vague Christian, this holiday season always meant one main thing for me: booty. Indeed it's a queer fact of American culture that during this time of year materialism at its most flagrant has displaced the miraculous (something both faiths deliver), and competition (for the best gifts and the lowest prices) seems to have displaced such quaint notions as altruism.