Far-from-Frivolous Friday, 12.25.2009: Holiday wishes

As the various winter festivals wind down, a few wishes for this season and the year to come:

• Folks spent the winter holiday of choice with those who meant the most to them
  
• No one felt obligated to financially over-extend her/himself in observance
  
• Gifts exchanged were meaningful, and won't follow their packaging into the landfills any time soon
• Engagements contracted lead to happy, enduring marriages
• Celebratory calories consumed evaporate on the treadmill far more readily than plain ol' workaday calories ;-)
• The Great Recession of the last year+ has left a lingering appreciation of what was previously taken for granted
  
• (The runner-up) The food pantries, animal shelters and other humanitarian agencies saw a better-than-expected bounce in donations
• (The winner) No one gave the emergency rooms (or, far worse, the morticians) any business that could be avoided

And, of course, the simple wish that the world will be a better place a year hence, in the micro-cosmic as well as macro-cosmic sense.

Cheers, all!