I was speaking with a friend today about her Thanksgiving plans and I could tell there was stress in her voice. She was worrying about how everything would get done. She was worrying about whether the usual family sniping would crop up. And, of course, she was worrying about whether all the recipes would turn out right. That's why I suggested that she should immediately follow my 12 Best Strategies for a Lower Stress Thanksgiving. I know she's going to thank me someday.

There is always a lot of discussion on this site about the frustration in getting guests to respond to an RSVP request. Today I'm sharing a reader tip about the way he sees the RSVP challenge. He's a professional in the hospitality industry and, therefore, he has a different perspective than the rest of us. But it did make me wonder if adapting his attitude might make all of our lives a little bit easier. What do you think?

We were away last weekend, and one of the highlights of the trip was discovering a wine and cheese shop that we hadn't explored before. After sampling the wines in the shop we picked up a bottle of local wine to enjoy when we returned back home. That wine will be new for us even though the locals are probably familiar with it. But there's wine on the horizon that will be new to everyone - the upcoming release of the French Beaujolais Nouveau on the third Thursday of this month. That sounds to me like a good excuse for a wine and cheese party.

A few weeks ago we co-hosted a mall scavenger hunt birthday party for our 11-year-old daughter and her friend who was also celebrating her 11th birthday. Since the girls were on the younger side, we divided them into teams and assigned a parent to travel around the mall with each group. I believe this was one of their favorite birthday parties and it would have been one of the least expensive ones too, except that we took the group to see a movie at the end. But truly, that was unnecessary. Their favorite part was the mall scavenger hunt.

_{Photo © Donna Pilato}