Happy New Year! Not that you’re even reading, because surely you’re all recovering from your various thrilling New Year’s Eve festivities, which probably included bubbly beverages and steamy midnight kisses.

My own evening featured an illicit 5 PM Red Bull, so I’d have a fighting chance at staying awake to watch the Space Needle fireworks at 12 AM, at which point I kissed my bottle of Tums for helping to keep the worst of my pregnancy-induced acid reflux at bay.

Yeah, don’t try and tell me I don’t know how to party.

Anyway, I have been thinking vaguely about New Year’s resolutions, and how being a giant third-trimester whale on January 1st really goes a long way towards getting you off the hook on those damn things. My resolution for 2008: have healthy child, maintain sanity afterwards.

I know there will come a time, though, when my thoughts will turn from the daily chaos of newborn + toddler to the state of my body. While I have no plans to make life even more stressful by fretting over the inevitable postpartum disrepair, I know from experience that getting back in shape will make a huge difference in my emotional well-being and overall productivity.

With that in mind, and the fact that most New Year’s goals tend to involve dealing with our waistlines, forgive me for going the predictable route on this post and recommending some fitness products. Earlier in 2007 (before I got knocked up and everything went to hell) I was in a really good exercise groove, and I’d like to share the things that worked excellently for me—as a busy mom with not a lot of time to invest in gym visits. If working out is the last thing you want to be thinking about right now, please enjoy this great forum thread instead.

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I’ve never been someone who goes overboard during the holidays, but this year I’m definitely feeling a sense of pressure. It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway through December already, and I have this very un-festive desire to barrel straight through to January—despite the fact that January marks the only-one-month-to-go mark with my pregnancy and holy crap, I haven’t done one single thing to prepare for this baby.

Between fighting off a cold determined to suck all the joy from my life over the last few weeks, dealing with my office moving across town and thus complicating my commute all to heck, and juggling a monster freelance project to which I totally overcommitted myself, I just haven’t felt the holiday spirit this year yet. We got our tree up and I put out a few decorations, but man, I haven’t followed through on any of my ambitious November plans (homemade wreath for the front door! Lights for the house! Gingerbread cookies for Riley! Hand-crafted holiday cards! Advent calendar craft project! FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL).

I’m trying to resuscitate my dwindling jolliness and squelch my inner Grinch, and I’m hoping you guys have some ideas for making the most out of the holidays—in a low-pressure kind of way. You know what I mean? I want happy holiday traditions and memories for my family, but in reality I work more than one job, I have a 2-year-old, I’m five thousand months pregnant (well, give or take), and I seem to be missing some critical Martha-esque gene required for effortless crafty projects.

My own suggestions: this year I used tinyprints for our holiday cards instead of making my own the way I usually do (they turned out great!), and I’ve shopped online for literally every single holiday gift on my list (making good use of Amazon’s Prime program). I also gave up on the homemade advent calendar idea and found a really cute wooden box version at Goodwill, and every day Riley opens a new door to reveal . . . you are going to think I am SO LAME, here . . . half a Flinstone’s vitamin (Riley: “A BITAMIN! YAYY!”). What can I say, he loves those things. Sometimes we shake things up with a sticker or a tiny piece of chocolate, but I’m telling you, the vitamins are the biggest hits.

Okay, this is totally one of those posts where I’m hoping the helpful comments make up for the lack of useful blog content. Please share your holiday traditions, ideas, tips, and anything else that might help the overloaded, overscheduled, and overburdened with mucus.

When I was a kid my mother and I lived in Virginia while my grandparents lived in Michigan, and every holiday we either visited them or they came to us. My grandmother used to say, “If Mohammed cannot come to the mountain, the mountain will come to Mohammed”. Then she would bow deeply, a gong would sound, and she would disappear in a cloud of smoke.

Not really, but that particular phrase makes it sound like she was all mystical and stuff, doesn’t it? She also had a saying about sitting in the corner and sucking on a mop, so obviously she was a woman of many fine colloquialisms.

Anyway, if you have small children I hope that the mountain is coming to your Mohammed during this week’s holiday, unless of course you enjoy traveling with small children, in which case may I suggest having an arterial blood gas test? YOU MAY BE DANGEROUSLY LOW ON OXYGEN.

Unfortunately, we have a road trip on the agenda, although on the plus side our destination is one of my favorite places ever. As I’ve been thinking ahead to what we need to pack and how many cups of juice one small boy can be expected to consume during a 6 hour drive (answer: as many as you will foolishly give him, until his diaper explodes with an heart-sinking kaplooey noise), I thought this might be a good time to review a few products that help make car travel with kids just a tiny bit more tolerable.

(Not reviewed: Benadryl, as I cannot with good conscience recommend this course of action, but I certainly know many parents who swear by the Dope ‘N Drive method.)

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There are approximately eleventy hojillion articles out there on “Relaxation for Moms” and “Pampering Resources” and “Coping With Stress”, which can basically be boiled down to: CHILLAX, WOMAN.

I’m not going to blather on about why it’s healthy to make sure you focus on yourself as well as your family and your job, I’m just going to tell you about a few of my top choices for decompressing and enjoying the time I have to myself (often an all-too-brief window, but hey, I take what I can get).

FOR YOUR MOUTH

(Heh.)

Here’s a product that’s probably best if you can buy it hot and freshly-made from the source, but since I don’t live in Chicago I’m just glad there’s an internet option: Garrett Popcorn.

So. Damn. Good. I’ve only tried the Caramel Crisp so far, but MY GOD. Don’t even let the kids get at this stuff—seriously, buy them a box of Fiddle Faddle so you can hoard this buttery, unbelievably rich concoction all to yourself.

I know it’s not the healthiest choice for snacking (or eating in giant handfuls in place of a nutritious dinner), but for sheer comfort food this popcorn can’t be beat. I particularly endorse the option of eating it while reclining on the couch watching a really entertaining TV series, such as Battlestar Galactica. Goodbye, tension. Hello, deliciousness.

FOR YOUR EARS

The music I’d like to recommend for general enjoyment and de-stressification is a Brazilian instrumental group called Uakti, who I never would have discovered on my own but when I heard my coworker playing one of their albums, I had to rush in his office and ask him what in HELL that wonderful noise was.

Having read up a little on the band, I’ve learned that Uakti primarily use really awesome sounding custom-made instruments (constructed from everyday materials like pipe, glasses, metal, rocks, rubber, and even water) to create their music. Their name may be hard to pronounce (I think you say “wok-chee”) but man, has it ever got a cool origin: it comes from an Tukano Indian legend about a mythological being named Uakti, whose body was full of holes. When he ran and wind passed through them, the holes produced sounds that bewitched the women of the tribe, and so the men hunted him and burned his body. Palm trees sprouted from the place where his body was buried, and the Indians used these to create flutes that make the same music as Uakti’s body did.

(Dear Limp Bizkit: you could learn something from this. Primarily, how to name your band something that doesn’t make people BARF.)

Anyway, the album I recently acquired is called Aguas da Amazonia, and it’s composed by Philip Glass. It’s a liquid, burbling, beautiful collection of music that’s soothing without being boring. I particularly recommend the second song on the album (the whole thing is on iTunes, if you’d like to try a track or two) called “Japura River”—it’s absolutely magical. Play it in the car on your way home from work and you will literally feel your soul being hung out on a clothesline and dried in the sun. Ahhhhh.

FOR YOUR NOSE

I’m not particularly interested in aromatherapy or acupuncture or holistic medicine or a diet featuring high amounts of soy (unless it’s soy sauce), but I really like this smelly little product by Saje. It’s a blend of several essential oils, including peppermint, lavender, lemon, myrrh, chamomile, and possibly eye of newt. While I initially bought it on someone’s suggestion that it might help with sinus congestion/allergies (for me, it did not), I now use it in my bath nearly every night. It only takes one or two drops in running water to fill the tub with a powerfully relaxing smell—sort of extremely herbal but still really, really good. I feel like I sleep extra deeply afterwards, all loose and mellow and ready to dream about Clive Owen. A shirtless, unshaven, slightly grimy Clive Owen. Mmm.

Okay, that’s all for now, but I’d love to hear your top picks for must-have Chillaxation Stuff. What are your favorite me-time accouterments?