It’s “Black Friday” 2018 as I type this. Thanksgiving is a pleasant recent memory and we can finally justify all of the Christmas commercials and music we’ve been seeing for the past two weeks. Alongside the early commercial push for “buy buy buy!” I’ve been hearing friends talk about how the holidays were going to treat them… or more correctly, how they were going to behave during the holiday season. One thing I heard repeatedly was, “Why should I start eating clean and exercising now? It never works during the holidays. I’ll just start January first and make it a New Year’s Resolution.”  Because that always works, right? (more…)

Every year around this time, as all law enforcement professionals know, suicides and suicide attempts seem to climb in number.  The stress of the season, for whatever reason, seems to outweigh the happiness and good cheer that (seemingly) all of us are trying to spread.  The challenge is that not ALL of us really are trying to spread good cheer.  Some people are merely trying to make a few more dollars before the fiscal year ends. Some people are just trying to get a few more sales made before the end of year. Some people are just trying to leverage the season to fatten their purses/wallets and they don’t think about anything else. Now, it’s true that such folks can really only prey on those who haven’t set a budget or haven’t made up their mind what they want to buy, etc. (more…)