We bring 2006 to a close on FaithfulReader.com first by acknowledging you, our readers, with a heartfelt "Thank You" for all the ways you've made this year truly special. As you know we celebrated our 10th Anniversary as a company, and with the turning of any milestone comes a time for reflection on how far we've come and how far we can go. Thank you for joining us in this journey, and we hope to have you with us along the way for many years to come.

Last weekend my younger son and I made 3-D cookies with the cookie cutters that we got at Williams-Sonoma. Um, let's just say ours are going to be 2-D. There is no way the legs are going to fit on the body of the reindeer, the trunk on the tree or the rudders on the sleigh. I was in the store last night and told the salesperson there that we flunked cookie baking in 3-D. She told me not to fret since she thought they looked WAY too challenging. Nice to hear. I never knew cookies were challenging. I thought knitting was challenging.

While we have a very tasteful holiday display here at the house with the front columns wrapped in red bows, a big decorated wreath and hand-painted candy canes on the front walk, I have a confession. I love checking out the houses with really gaudy, over-the-top lighting displays. You know the ones I mean ---- they have been the subject of endless holiday movies and they are the ones where you just picture the electric meter whirring around and around when you drive by.

A book came across my desk the other day that got me thinking about food and the way I consume it in a whole new way. It's called MINDLESS EATING: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. Quick Fact: the average person makes up to 200 food decisions a day, including what not to eat or choosing what to eat. Reading made me think about the way I will heat up something in the microwave and then munch 4 cookies while I am waiting for it to be ready. And how when I am running out in the morning I will grab a buttermilk biscuit or two and chomp through them because they are easy to take when I have a whole bowl full of cut fruit in the fridge. And how I am known to work my jaws on sticky candies like spearmint leaves or orange slices as I drive and then look down and find half the bag is gone.

The day after Thanksgiving scares me. I feel like I will leave my driveway and become swept up in Black Friday shopping madness. I feel like all roads lead to the malls. The Y where I swim is near a large mall, so as I try to swim off my Thanksgiving calories, I need to deal with mall traffic. Yet another reason I think we should convert our basement into a swimming pool! Seriously, I have dreams of this like I used to dream of our owning a white Country Squire station wagon with wood on the side when I was a child. I know, who else thinks of things like THAT?

I am writing this week from poolside at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami where the ever-so-helpful staff here has ensured I have electrical power next to my lounge chair so I can write on my laptop, as well as an endless supply of iced tea and lemon-flavored water. For the record, it's cloudy with small peeks from the sun, the kind of day where I would not be sitting poolside at home, but hey, I am in Florida and when I am in Florida I do not want to be inside. As the pool boy said, "It's all part of the fantasy."