Illustration: Zohar Lazar for Newsweek 

By Anna Kuchment

Nancy Plant wasn’t sure how to prevent her daughter’s playdates from veering toward disaster. Five-year-old Kate “liked to be in control,” says Plant, an attorney from Bainbridge Island, Wash. Kate would tell her friends what to do and, if they decided not to follow her instructions, she “would get mad and not want to play with them.” Tears ensued. After trying several strategies that seemed only to make matters worse, Plant and her husband, George Jarecke, turned to a parent coach. For $75 an hour ($100 for an introductory session), Sally Kidder Davis of Sound Parent (soundparent.com) met with Plant and Jarecke to talk through potential solutions. One was to talk to Kate about the importance of being a responsible hostess. If she couldn’t help her guests enjoy themselves, she couldn’t have them over. The strategy worked.

  Illustration: Mark Matcho for Newsweek

 By Karen Springen

Like many couples, Brian Delaney, 35, and his wife, Daniela, 34, turned to in vitro fertilization after failing to conceive on their own. But after five attempts and an investment of $150,000, IVF failed them as well. Then Brian saw a male-infertility specialist, Columbia University’s Dr. Harry Fisch, who discovered that Brian’s low sperm production could be corrected through microsurgery. Three months later, Daniela was pregnant. Last November she delivered a baby boy, Harrison.

Long overlooked, male infertility has become a fruitful field of research. Doctors now know that, when a couple fails to conceive, the problem lies with the man as often as with the woman. And as the Delaneys learned, recent advances have dramatically improved experts’ understanding of how to diagnose, treat and prevent the condition. “Anything that makes the body unhealthy—a disease, toxins, excessive alcohol—will hurt fertility,” says UCSF urologist Paul Turek. “But most of these things that hurt fertility are reversible.” Some tips for men:

Richard Dobson/Getty images
Wild Things: A family comes across Masai giraffes during an afternoon excursion in South Africa

Feb 11, 2008 issue
By Tara Weingarten

Twice before, Alison and Geoff Edelstein had been on an African safari and thought it was the best vacation they had ever taken. They awoke each morning at 5, hopped on an open-air 4 x 4, and drove into the world of giant elephants that gathered at sunrise to chomp on the dewy leaves. But it wasn’t until they brought their two teenage boys with them on a recent trip to South Africa and Zambia that they fully appreciated the journey. “It is the biggest experience you can imagine, and you just want to share it with the people you love the most,” says Alison, 44, of Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Many families dream of visiting southern Africa to see free-roaming lions and rhinos up close. But such a trip is likely to be one of the most expensive vacations you’ll take in your lifetime, even if done on a budget. For that reason, many travelers wait until midlife to make the trek, when they have more disposable income and their kids are old enough to cope with jet lag, sit through long safari rides and get the full impact of what they’re seeing. Now winter through springtime is the best time to go—the bush is less dense and the animals are easier to spot.

Illustration: Michael Klein for Newsweek

Let Ben Bernanke worry about the world—you worry about your wallet. Some economists are predicting the first U.S. recession since 2001’s slide, when the stock market dropped as much as 30 percent, personal income fell sharply and more than 2 million jobs disappeared. It’s nice that Washington wants to throw some stimulus your way, but don’t bet everything on that $600-per-taypayer check. Here’s how to protect yourself from bad times.

Protect your job. Stay visibly busy, says New York headhunter Stephen Viscusi. The first employees to go during a recession are the high-maintenance slackers. Come in early, leave late, eat lunch at your desk and try to figure out how you can make your boss’s life easier and more profitable. Update your résumé with all your current skills and accomplishments, even if you’re not planning on job hunting. You can post that résumé, absent your current employer’s name, at online job sites like Monster.com, just to see what else is out there. If you’re ready for a change, Vault.com reports that health-care and sales careers are the most promising and protected during downturns.

Protect your portfolio. It’s a little too late to sell off your stocks: now you stand a good chance of selling low and then trying to buy in high later. So stick with your plan, and use Wall Street’s dismal days to cherry-pick bargain stocks for the next expansion. It always comes, says Sam Stovall of Standard & Poor’s, who points out that most bear markets recover in less than a year. Which stocks do best when the economy is at its worst? Alcohol, tobacco, health care, gaming, utilities and consumer necessities. S&P is recommending Budweiser, Colgate-Palmolive, LabCorp of America and Altria as some promising picks.

Don’t rush into bonds, and be especially wary of bond mutual funds, counsels financial planner Sheryl Garrett of Shawnee Mission, Kans. With interest rates low, yields aren’t worth the effort. And once the economy strengthens enough to see higher rates (which are necessary to keep pulling in foreign investors, too), the value of those bonds, and the funds that hold them, will fall.

Protect your pocketbook. Make paying down your debts a priority, counsels Garrett. Kill the credit-card balance as quickly as possible, even if you have to give up new clothes and nights out to do it. You can even draw down your emergency savings account to pay off the credit card, as long as you keep the card balance at zero after that. Then you could use the card in an emergency until you rebuild the fund. Apply for a home-equity line of credit, so it’s available for emergencies, but don’t use it. Consider refinancing your home mortgage while the Federal Reserve is holding rates down, especially if you have an expensive or risky loan now. Don’t be shy about holding cash in safe, stable, boring spots like FDIC-insured bank certificates of deposit.

Protect your psyche. Remind yourself that recessions are a normal part of a healthy economic cycle, and resist panic. To stay calm, write a list of all the extra ways you could make or save money in a pinch: share a car or rent out a room of your house. When you have options, it seems less scary.

And don’t feel guilty about disappointing our nation’s leaders if you use the stimulus package to put your financial house in order. When that government check comes, probably sometime in March, don’t spend it. Use it to pay down your credit-card bill, or put it to work in your retirement- or college-savings account. Think of it this way: if you’ve got debt, you’ve already done your patriotic duty by buying all that stuff in the first place.

 

 
Illustration by Tim Bower for Newsweek

 

Bill Barnes and Sara Cole are downwardly mobile. In the mid-1990s, the Seattle couple was living large on two Microsoft salaries and no big responsibilities. Sara, now 38, gave up her job when daughters Theo, 7, and Rosie, 4, came along. Then Bill, 41, an artist, developed “Unshelved”—a comic strip that he loves far more than the commute and the cubicle. So he quit, too, leaving Microsoft last month to go solo as a cartoonist and pushing his family farther down the security and income spectrum.

Last year Bill raked in roughly $180,000. This year, if he’s able to build the comic strip as he hopes and do some consulting around the edges, he might earn $80,000. The couple has carved up the family budget; they’ve moved to a smaller home, limited their restaurant meals and begun to shop at thrift stores. But they’re happier. “I think I’ve held my last job,” says Barnes.

He and Cole are part of a minitrend, says Chicago outplacement consultant John Challenger. The percentage of married couples with two sal-aries peaked at 53.4 percent in 1997; now it is 51.8 percent. Husbands and wives are leaving jobs midcareer, some to stay home with kids, others to help ailing parents and others to tend their own fledgling businesses. And some, of course, get laid off. Here’s how to make the transition to a smaller, perhaps sweeter life.

Run the numbers. They won’t be as grim as you think. The first thing you give up with the second salary is taxes. When a husband and wife each earn $50,000 and one quits, the tax savings off the top are $14,825, calculates Bob Scharin, a senior tax analyst with Thomson Tax & Accounting. You’ll also save money on downtown lunches, fancy work clothes and all the other things you buy—from convenience meals to child care—to make your working life easier. To find out exactly how much of a gap you’ll be left with, crunch the numbers with these online calculators: kiplinger.com/tools/managing/afford.html and parents.com/ app/stayathomecalculator.

Ease into it. If you have the luxury of planning your exit, start living on less as soon as possible. Bank extra cash in a rainy-day fund. Apply for a home-equity line of credit before you quit, just to make sure you have a source of cash for emergencies.

Squeeze the budget. Some couples find extra cash by cutting their retirement contributions and college savings during the first lean year or two. That’s OK, but it’s better if you can keep saving and close the gap by living below your means. When Lewes, Dela., financial planner Burt Hutchinson’s wife, Pam, left her job, the couple made a list of possible savings. Among them: stretching their mortgage with a 30-year fixed loan, which they haven’t yet done.

Then spend more. Buy term life and disability insurance for the family breadwinner and consider term life insurance for the stay-at-home spouse. If necessary, use the quitting spouse’s COBRA benefits to keep the family health insurance. If you’re still able to save for retirement, set up a spousal Individual Retirement Account for the nonworking spouse, to make sure his retirement savings keep pace.

Keep the career fires burning. It’s one thing to drop out of the work force for a while; it’s another to give up contacts and skills that will ease your transition back. Yvonne Lefort, a career consultant from Moraga, Calif., who specializes in stay-at-home moms, tells them to meet former colleagues for coffee, take classes to keep their tech skills alive and attend the occasional profes-sional conference.

Renegotiate the partnership. Sometimes the biggest adjustment when a couple transitions from two jobs to one isn’t the budget, it’s the marriage. “We had to do a lot of work in our relationship when we switched to a traditional bread-earner/stay-at-home-wife deal,” says Barnes. He puts all his earnings in a joint account and then he and Cole draw equal but small amounts for personal spending and gift giving. The quitting spouse might be sacrificing a career for the sake of a family, or the working spouse may be sticking with a less-than-wonderful job to support the quitting spouse’s dream. “If there are quid pro quos involved, it’s important to make them explicit,” says San Francisco financial adviser Milo Benningfield. “Make sure each partner agrees on the reasons for the transition and acknowledges each other’s efforts, sacrifices and good will in helping to make it happen.” So talk about it, every step of the way. Without that pesky job, you should have plenty of time.

There are so many creative ways to trash a perfectly good hotel room--it's come naturally to rockers and divas like these for decades.

The first instance of modern hotel room trashing can probably be traced to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who reportedly fled their eucalyptus-scented bungalow at the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel of L.A.'s Wilshire Boulevard after it caught fire. The high-living Jazz Age icons were concerned about their massive bill, which was quickly coming due. These 10 outrageous incidents help explain why we've had to leave a credit card at the front desk ever since.

I said spaghetti pomodoro !
The risk of selecting pasta from a room service menu is that it may arrive overheated, much like the frequently boiling blood of Amy Winehouse . In one of a seemingly endless series of mini meltdowns, the beehive-coiffed British pop singer, 24, hurled a plate of spaghetti Bolognese at the wall of her Munich , Germany , hotel room. Two months earlier, Winehouse tallied up nearly $18,000 worth of damage to her room at London 's posh Sanderson hotel after a fight with her scrawny hubby. A hotel staffer told the British tab Sunday Mirror , which has gleefully chronicled Winehouse's year in celeb hell: "I've certainly never seen anything like it before. They had to get an outside firm to clean blood off the walls, and then there was a hefty paint job." Sanderson, 50 Berners St., London, England, 011-44/20-7300-1400, sandersonlondon.com , rooms from £ 215 ($435).

Won't get fooled again
On August 23, 1967, while touring with fellow British Invasion band Herman's Hermits, The Who's Keith Moon observed his 21st birthday by raising a celebratory toast—and a dozen more—to the spirit of uncontainable destruction that marked both his drumming and his lifestyle. He hurled a five-tier cake into the crowd partying in his hotel room, promptly ruining the carpet and setting off a food fight. Someone even emptied all the fire extinguishers on his floor (in a post-trashing interview, Moon claimed the damages totaled $24,000). When a police officer showed up, Moon, stripped down to his underwear, jumped into a nearby Lincoln Continental, drove it through a fence, and abandoned it at the bottom of the Flint Holiday Inn's pool. In a final flourish, he slipped on a piece of marzipan and knocked out his front teeth. The officer escorted Moon to the dentist before throwing him in jail for a few hours. Forty years on, this incident remains the granddaddy of all rock and roll lodging smashups. The Who were subsequently banned from all Holiday Inns for life. Sadly for Moon, that would amount to only about 11 years. Days Inn Flint (formerly Flint Holiday Inn), 2207 West Bristol Rd. , Flint , Mich. , 810/239-4681, daysinn.com , rooms from $58.

The suspect is two feet tall and well armed
Guests at Manhattan 's posh Mark Hotel were awakened at 5:30 a.m. on September 13, 1994 , by the sounds of shattering glass, snapping wood, and loud domestic squabbling. When police entered the $1,200-per-night Presidential Suite, they found actor Johnny Depp and his then-girlfriend, supermodel Kate Moss, sitting amidst a pile of debris—but they did not find the armadillo Depp reportedly blamed the vandalism on. Depp was taken to the city's 19th Precinct station house, booked on felony criminal mischief charges, and billed $9,767 for the damages. Coincidentally, one of the put-out guests at the hotel that evening was Roger Daltrey, singer for alpha hotel destroyers The Who. "On a scale of 1 to 10, I give him a 1," Daltrey told People magazine. "It took him so bloody long. The Who could've done the job in one minute flat." Years later, Depp, then split from Moss, claimed the hotel's owner thanked him for all the free publicity. The Mark Hotel , 25 E. 77th St. , New York , N.Y. , 212/772-1600, themarkhotel.com . Closed for renovations through summer 2008.

Next eBay search: "syringes"
If Lindsay Lohan stuck with rehab long enough, she might make one of those 12-step meetings where they recommend avoiding people, places, and things that might trigger a relapse. Places like luxury beachside hotels with well-stocked minibars. They might also warn against dating someone met inside rehab. Someone like Riley Giles, late of Utah 's exclusive Cirque Lodge facility, who was with LiLo in early December 2007 when she laid waste to Room 645 at Shutters on the Beach. According to Star , Lohan and her ex-boyfriend spent three days wreaking havoc. An unnamed source told the tabloid, "It was a pigpen. There was filth everywhere and the room stank of cigarette smoke.... There was also a bloody syringe that someone left lying on the bedside table on a room-service tray. Hotel security photographed it before calling someone to remove it, because it was considered hazardous waste." That would also describe what's become of the once-promising actress's career. Shutters reportedly had to bring in an outside cleaning crew to repair the damages to the room. Shutters on the Beach, 1 Pico Blvd. , Santa Monica , Calif. , 310/458-0030, shuttersonthebeach.com , from $485.

Stone crazy
Have you ever noticed that your hotel room's television set has been bolted into the armoire? This story may explain why. At the L.A. stop of the Rolling Stones' 1972 North American tour, guitarist Keith Richards— and musician Bobby Keyes—grabbed the TV set from Room 1015 at the Continental Hyatt House, carried it out on the balcony 10 stories above the parking lot, and pitched it over the side. Richards remains an edgy rock icon in part because of his keen sense of self-mythology. He waited to make sure documentarian Robert Frank's camera was rolling before condemning the TV to its cruel fate. "O.K., you can tell us when," Richards croaked, then let the TV fly into legend. The footage (available in Frank's documentary and on YouTube) inspired dozens of copycats looking for a quick conduit to achieving Keith-hood. Hyatt West Hollywood (formerly the Continental Hyatt House), 8401 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, Calif., 323/656-1234, westhollywood.hyatt.com , rooms from $240.

What happens in Bangkok ...
In 1989, as the decade that made him a superstar drew to a close, Billy Idol found himself in Bangkok , Thailand . His plan for prolonging the party just a little more (more, more) was hatched in the Oriental hotel, but Idol allegedly soaked the carpets with some kind of fluid, and was quickly asked to vacate. From there, as with most urban myths based in Thailand , details get fuzzy. If rumor is to be believed, he embarked on a three-week drug-fueled orgy with an outrageous tab in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It, too, ended with flustered staff. Idol is said to have refused to leave the penthouse of another hotel, forcing local military officials to tranquilize him and carry him out on a stretcher. The room was then occupied by a visiting dignitary with a long-standing reservation—and no demonic sneer. The Oriental, 48 Oriental Ave. , Bangkok , Thailand , 011-66/2-659-9000, mandarinoriental.com/bangkok , rooms from $349.

The proto-Paris Hilton
Edie Sedgwick was the It Girl of the Swinging '60s art and fashion set, and a muse to both Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan. Yet the hard-partying socialite was also reportedly afraid of the dark. Her habit of falling asleep surrounded by lit candles resulted in an apartment fire in October 1966. After moving into Manhattan 's bohemian enclave, Hotel Chelsea, she ignored both recent history and a cryptic warning by fellow denizen Leonard Cohen. (The songwriter insisted Sedgwick's candle arrangements were "casting a bad spell.") Soon another rug was on fire, and shortly thereafter, the entire room was too. Luckily none of the hotel's guests were seriously injured, but Sedgwick's cat perished in the blaze. Its name? Smoke. Hotel Chelsea, 222 W. 23rd. St. , New York , N.Y., 212/243-3700, hotelchelsea.com , rooms from $209.

While you were out
On March 24, 1997 , French thespian Juliette Binoche accepted a Best Supporting Actress statuette for The English Patient as part of the 69th Annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium. Simultaneously, at her hotel just a short drive away, bass player Mike Dirnt of Green Day allegedly accepted the notion of defecating on her balcony as part of, well, nobody knows for sure. In fact, Dirnt strongly denies that this even happened, and considers the (fecal) matter closed. Yet he remains, at least in the minds of scatological crime enthusiasts, forever dangled over that balcony. The band was indeed staying in the rock-and-movie-star haunt, the Sunset Marquis, while recording their Nimrod album. One can't help but wonder about Binoche's first thought upon returning home from the after parties and spotting the now-fabled dookie. Sunset Marquis Hotel and Villas, 1200 N. Alta Loma Rd., West Hollywood, Calif., 310/657-1333, sunsetmarquishotel.com , rooms from $450.

43 is the new 23
In London to test out new material at a small Shepherd's Bush gig, recidivist hotel trasher Courtney Love celebrated her 43rd birthday with an impromptu room party at the Covent Garden Hotel on July 9, 2007 . While reflecting among revelers and well-wishers like British TV star Noel Fielding (of The Mighty Boosh ), the voice in her head might have gently suggested " Gee, I'm older now, more mature, wiser...do I still have it in me to completely freakin' destroy this perfectly charming rented space? " The cleaning staff discovered the answer to that question the following morning. "The room was left in a right state like a wild animal had been let loose in there," an unnamed witness later told the Daily Mirror . There were reportedly cigarette burns in the carpet, the sofa, and the bed—not just the bedding, but the actual four-poster bed. Love's rep played down the extent of the damage by claiming that one of the guests was "leaning on a table." Hotel management insisted that "what our guests do in here is between them and us," leaving open a window of possibility for her 44th. Covent Garden Hotel, 10 Monmouth St., London, England, 011-44/20-7806-1000, firmdale.com , rooms from £250 ($513).

Do not further disturb
The case of billionaire maverick Howard Hughes proves that with enough money, ingenuity, and henchmen, one can stretch the spontaneous room trashing into a prolonged exercise in grand-scale dementia. Hughes checked into a ninth-floor room at Las Vegas 's Desert Inn on Thanksgiving 1966, and, as was his habit, rented out two floors to ensure privacy. When it came time to check out, weeks later, Hughes instead arranged to purchase the entire hotel (one of five he would come to own in Vegas). He closed outside access to the ninth floor and added a 24-hour security checkpoint at the elevator. He reportedly spent much of the late '60s watching the Rock Hudson film Ice Station Zebra on a loop, having installed a cinema-quality sound system that caused the walls to shake. As his obsessive-compulsive disorder manifested itself as severe germophobia, Hughes supposedly stopped dressing, bathing, and clipping his nails; stored his own urine in jars; and wore tissue boxes for shoes. Films such as The Aviator and The Hoax explore the sights and sounds of this dark period. None have addressed the smell, which is best left to the imagination. Wynn Las Vegas (formerly Desert Inn), 3131 Las Vegas Blvd., South Las Vegas, Nev., 702/770-7100, wynnlasvegas.com , from $199.

Photo illustration by Viktor Koen for Newsweek

Jeanne Dulaney is a time-crunched software consultant who often eats out on the company expense account. But the 51-year-old from Montgomery, Ala., paid the price for her frequent restaurant dining: 40 extra pounds on her 5-foot 5-inch frame. With little time to commit to a real-world weight-loss program, Dulaney became a mouse-clicking dieting maven after seeing an ad for ediets.com. “I’m on my computer all the time, so I figured I’d give it a try,” she says.

Three years later, Dulaney is nearly 50 pounds lighter. She’s even started to run half-marathons with some new- found friends, other members of ediets.com. “Everyone who is trying to lose weight needs help,” she says. “I got mine from my computer.”

No one actually knows how many people like Dulaney have found weight-loss success with Internet-based commercial programs. But what is clear is that Web-based diets are becoming a booming part of the $30 billion U.S. weight-loss industry. The choices are endless. Internet-only weight-loss programs like ediets.com, diet.com and WebMD, and diet icons like Weight Watchers and South Beach are all competing for your weight-loss bucks. Even fitness franchise Curves opened a new online dieting site last week.

Although research into the effectiveness of online dieting is in its infancy, science is showing that it probably won’t hurt you. And, depending on the program’s components, these online purveyors may help you drop some pounds. With 24/7 access and anonymity, the sites may be helpful for folks who are too busy, or too shy, to attend a more structured program.

...

Nov. 12, 2007 issue

Allegra and Eric Lowitt toured several preschools and child-care centers in 2006 before finding the right match for their daughter, Dana, now almost 3. The Lowitts, who live outside Boston, settled on Needham’s Chestnut Children’s Center (from $4,500 per year for part-time preschool to $22,000 for full-time, year-round care), where the teachers are certified in early-childhood education and toddlers follow themed curricula that introduce such skills as letter recognition through games, field trips and other activities. Each day, Dana’s teacher gives the Lowitts a printed summary of their daughter’s activities, from what she ate to whom she played with. “It’ll say, ‘Dana loved making pumpkin muffins, and she held hands with Anna on the playground’,” says Allegra. “It’s nice to get a feel for what her day is like.”

While many young children stay home with a parent or sitter until they start kindergarten at the age of 5, a growing number are entering preschool earlier. Statistics set to be released this week by the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University show that in 2005, 69 percent of 4-year-olds attended preschool, up from 59 percent in 1991; among 3-year-olds, that number has grown to 43 percent and, for 2-year-olds, to 29 percent. “I think it’s a combination of public and private demand,” says Steven Barnett, director of NIEER. Not only are more states funding public preschools for 3- and 4-year-olds, but the number of private preschools has also increased as higher-income parents look to give even the youngest kids a leg up on learning. So, what is preschool, does your child need it and, if so, how do you find a good one?

Don’t judge a program by its name. A center doesn’t need any special certification to call itself a preschool, as opposed to a day-care center. And an inexpensive full-day program in your neighborhood might offer a more stimulating environment with better-trained teachers than a pricey half-day one. Just make sure it is state-licensed for health and safety.

Accreditation. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (naeyc.org) is the largest voluntary accreditation system in the country but covers only about 8 percent of schools. So, while the logo is a sign of high quality, its absence doesn’t mean the center is of poor quality.

The school tour. Watch how teachers interact with children, says Sharon Lynn Kagan, an associate dean and professor of early-childhood and family policy at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Do the children seem comfortable? Engaged? Happy? Ideally, teachers should have some formal training in early-childhood education. Teacher-to-student ratios should be at least one teacher to nine kids, ages 2.5 to 3, with no more than 18 toddlers in a group; for 4-year-olds, the group can go as high as 20, with two teachers, says NAEYC (see nieer.org for more info on what parents should ask).

When to start. Parents can find private two- and three-day-a-week programs for children as young as 2. For 2-year-olds, says Ellen Frede, a developmental psychologist and codirector of NIEER, one-day-a-week music or art classes is another good option. Three-year-olds would benefit from a good part-time program, and 4-year-olds are ready to attend school five days a week for at least a half-day.

What they should learn. “At this age, it’s not about drilling or spouting facts,” says Frede. Two-year-olds should be learning how to engage with their teachers and peers and how to be part of a group, says Nancy Schulman, coauthor of “Practical Wisdom for Parents” ($24.95) and director of New York City’s 92nd Street Y Nursery School. As kids grow, programs become more structured and include more group time, like story readings. Teachers should encourage role-playing games, from simply pretending to have a phone conversation to playing “house.” That helps children learn narrative, which, in turn, builds preliteracy skills.

But a preschool’s most basic attribute lies in helping its kids feel safe and cared-for. “We have to meet those very important needs first,” says Lauren Hentschel, owner of Needham’s Chestnut Children’s Center. “Then, after that, all sorts of wonderful things can happen.”

Nov. 5, 2007 issue
By Karen Springen  

Deck the Halls with LEDs: Your Christmas decorations can burn just as brightly with less electricity

This year, Americans will send nearly 2 billion holiday cards, use more than 38,000 miles of ribbon and leave millions of Christmas trees on the curb. Does that mean you should feel guilty for having a great time? Nah. Neither does it mean forgoing any of the elements that make the holiday season special. “You don’t have to sacrifice the celebration for sustainability,” says Zem Joaquin, founder of ecofabulous.com and eco-editor of House & Garden. Her advice: be “eco-wise.” Here are a few secrets for an environmentally friendly—but still festive— holiday season.

Lights. Buy strings of LED lights, which look the same as conventional incandescent bulbs but last longer and use 80 to 90 percent less energy. LED lights, like the 300-light garland for $8.99 at homedepot.com, are also safer since they barely warm up. And invest in timers that automatically shut off your lights and cost as little as $9.99.

Ilustration by Mark Matcho for Newsweek

Tanya Hahnel, 24, earns more than $25,000 a year helping Boston-area families find affordable housing. She has health insurance, good benefits, no credit-card debt and a frugal lifestyle. Still, Hahnel bartends at night so she can afford to fly home to the Washington, D.C., area for Christmas. Her friends, many of whom are working hourly jobs without health benefits, are faring worse. “If you’re making $7 an hour plus tips, and you don’t have insurance and something bad happens, your credit is just ruined,” she says. “Everybody I know is really struggling.”

You don’t have to be irresponsible or bad with plastic to get slammed when you’re young, out on your own for the first time. Here’s why it’s tough: starter jobs come with low salaries and, increasingly, without health insurance. Rents are high, and there’s a litany of hidden expenses in the life of a twentysomething: deadbeat roommates who “share” utilities but never actually write their checks; friends’ weddings that require costly dresses and travel; security deposits and agent fees every time you move; medical care that’s not covered by insurance; needing everything (furniture, work clothes, wheels, kitchen gear) at the same time, and, yes, college loans.

Silvia Otte
Book It: A sunflower field in Gascony, the setting for the Hours’ literary tour ‘Madame Bovary’s France’...

By Anna Kuchment
Oct. 22, 2007 issue

Last summer Bill Busse, a retired architect from Palo Alto, Calif., took a trip down the Mississippi River and through the pages of his favorite childhood stories. In the Mark Twain Mississippi River Tour (from $5,495; literarytraveler.com), Busse, his wife, Barbara, and a dozen other travelers stayed aboard a 1920s paddlewheel steamboat, heard lectures about Mark Twain and his work and visited Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Mo. The highlight: walking through the cave where Twain set some of Tom Sawyer’s and Becky Thatcher’s exploits in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” “I’m not sure that people realize this was a real place,” says Busse. “It just grabbed me.”

Though trips like Mark Twain’s Mississippi appeal to all age groups, their popularity has grown as baby boomers approach their empty-nest years. “Baby boomers are a very well-read group and they travel quite a bit,” says Cathy Keefe, spokeswoman for the Travel Industry Association. A 2006 TIA survey showed that 56 percent of adults were interested in enrichment, or educational, trips. “As kids, we ask, ‘Why, why, why?’ but then we get busy with our lives and put those questions away,” says Ann Kirkland, founder of Classical Pursuits (classical pursuits.com) in Toronto. “But there comes a time when we have a little more space for reflection and we go back to those questions.”

Literary tours range from laid-back sightseeing excursions to more intellectually rigorous experiences that involve reading lists and seminars. On the more laid-back end is British Tours Ltd.’s private one-day Jane Austen trip from London ($970 for four people; british tours.com). Travelers visit her home at Chawton, where she wrote “Emma” and “Mansfield Park”; Bath, which figured prominently in many of her works, and the cathedral city of Winchester, where she is buried. On the more rigorous end is The Hours, a New York City-based company that mixes sumptuous tours of Tuscany and southern France with book discussions lead by a literature professor. Henry James’s Tuscany ($1,160 per person for six nights; thehours nyc.com) is set on an estate in the hamlet of Monterongriffoli, Italy, and includes cooking classes and truffle hunts. Madame Bovary’s France, planned for next fall, will be set in Gascony and will include visits to cheese and olive farms.

More independent-minded travelers can plan their