Timothy Yordy

There’s a very sad story coming from Perryton Independent School District in Perryton, TX in which students in a 10th grade history class each year were given red ribbons to wear and wearing the ribbon signified that those students were Jews. The purpose of this activity was to learn about the holocaust and this was to be achieved by allowing all the non-Jew students and faculty to do what they pleased with the ‘Jewish’ students. Things like picking up trash, being taken outside and sprayed with a hose, crawling across a hot running surface, and carrying other students.

That last one is where this innocent game of school sanctioned bullying gets ugly. One former student, Andrew Yara,  allegedly suffered some pretty serious injuries including a dislocated hip after being forced to carry students much larger than himself. That student is now suing the school district for unspecified damages.

There’s something bigger here though that is just waiting to be recognized. That something is this: Given the opportunity, people will gladly act like Nazis. In spite off all the history lessons, stories from our grandparents and WWII documentaries the simple truth is that if a governing body (in this case the public school district) makes it legal to mistreat and harm another group of citizens (the ‘Jewish’ students) then there will always be a segment of society that will gladly due so. I think we sometimes tend to look back through history’s various atrocities and think that the people involved must have been so completely evil. But here in this little town in Texas we have a glowing example that the potential for evil resides in all of us, it’s our choices in the face of that potential that determine who we become.

Yes, some of the students may have learned that life as a Jew under Nazi rule was pretty terrible, but how many more students learned how gratifying it was to be a Nazi? How many learned that being a bully is fun when the people you are bullying don’t dare fight back? In Germany the Jews faced death, these students faced a failing grade if they didn’t comply with everything the ‘Nazis’ wanted them to do.

This is of course just a very small example of government sanctioned mistreatment of one group in favor of another. There have been real world examples in our country in the past and there are still some today as well as some even worse around the world. I don’t really know what this public school had hoped to accomplish by giving students the ‘Red Ribbon’ assignment. But I do know that it illustrated just how depraved humans can be, all anyone has to do is give us permission. The choice of right and wrong is always available though and I’m sure that many students at Perryton high-school didn’t participate in the bullying. Then again, the Nazis highest level of votes in German elections never even managed to get above 44% and even with less than a majority, their power was mighty indeed.

The little town of Perryton, TX has given us some insight into the human condition that modern society doesn’t like to acknowledge: Deep down inside, without the arresting influence of divine grace, we are very likely to choose evil over good. One good thing that has come from Andrew Yara suing the school district: The Red Ribbon assignment has been killed. Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, at least more students won’t have to take part in this ridiculous be bullied or fail project.

Something tragic has happened in America. We currently face a threat inside our own borders that we’ve not had to face in a long time. No, I’m not talking about Muslim extremists. This enemy is far older, at least for us here in the States.

I’m talking of course about the British. They’re no longer coming, they’re already here. Don’t believe me? This really is an insidious plot that went almost unnoticed, but I’m here to reveal it to the world. This 4th of July it’s time to declare our independence once again.

Independence from people like Gordon Ramsey who is making a fortune on screaming and cursing at Americans and telling us we don’t know how to cook. When was the last time you heard anyone say “Hey, let’s go eat British tonight.” I’m pretty sure that sentence has never been uttered. You know why? Because British food sucks.

Independence from Jaime Oliver who thinks he needs to be the food police and tell us how to feed our children. So what if America’s youth are starting to look like puffer fish? It’s really part of a secret strategy to have plenty of fat stores in preperation for the coming food insecurity issues that will face the world in coming years.

Independence from the people on Super Nanny. They enjoy telling Americans that they don’t know how to raise their own kids. Anyone ever seen the nannies’ kids? I question whether or not they have children of their own. And have you seen most of the women on that show? Perhaps Jaime Oliver should head back across the Atlantic and offer some food advice to his fellow Britains.

Then of course there is Simon Cowell. He’s been on American TV for nearly a decade hurling insults at our tone deaf youth and telling them they don’t know how to sing. Has anyone ever heard Simon Cowell sing? I thought not. I believe his overly critical attitude towards vocalists is a way of trying to cope with his own failed aspirations as a singer.

Is this really what our forefathers died for? Wasn’t their blood shed in order to give us freedom from these bossy Brits? The worst part is that American money is filling the bank accounts of these unwanted Englishmen. Wasn’t that the main point of the American Revolution, to avoid giving Britain our hard earned money? Now we do it willingly. For shame America. Somewhere buried in the earth, what’s left of George Washington’s decaying corpse is shedding a metaphorical tear. This 4th of July assert your independence and reclaim your freedom by turning off these television programs. It’s the Patriotic thing to do.

There is a currently a big push in this country to pass into law the “Main Street Fairness Act”. The purpose of this act according to it’s supporters is to force online retailers to charge sales tax for all purchases, not just for sales made in the state where the online retailer has a physical presence. The claim is that online retailers have an unfair advantage over traditional brick and mortar stores by not charging sales tax.

Though these laws apply to all online retailers, Amazon has clearly been the target because of it’s huge market share. Several states have already passed laws requiring online retailers to charge sales tax if a sale originated from an affiliate for the retailer in that state. States like Colorado, Arkansas, Illinois, and Connecticut have already passed the so called Main Street Fairness laws and Amazon’s response has been to cut ties with affiliates in those states.

Who is Actually Behind the Main Street Fairness Act?

Now that I’ve set the background for what this law intends to do, let’s take a look at some of the misinformation surrounding it. First of all the name itself, like so many things in government, is kind of a misnomer. Politicians and special interest groups are fond of using the term “Main Street” to suggest small business and as a separate thing from the big businesses on “Wall Street.” This couldn’t be further from the truth with the Main Street Fairness Act. Currently Wal-Mart, Target. Best Buy, Home Depot, and Sears are all spending millions of dollars to lobby politicians to pass this bill into law.

That doesn’t sound much like “Main Street” to me. The name of this coalition and the scare tactic advertisements that they’ve been running show a clear intention to deceive the public about who actually holds an interest in this bill being past.

Do Taxes Hurt Local Businesses?

This is one of the more humorous if unintended aspects of this law. Some of the same politicians who are pushing this are the same ones that want high business taxes. Yet by the very existence of the Main Street Fairness Act it’s pretty much an admission that taxes hurt businesses.

The idea that online retailers have an advantage over brick and mortar stores because they don’t charge taxes is a bit misleading. Thinking about all the online purchases I’ve ever made I’m not sure that there was ever a time when not having to pay taxes influenced my buying decision. The truth is that for many product categories online retailers charge significantly less then local ones. There are of course exceptions to this but for many items, it’s just stupid to buy it locally. If you want an example just go look at how much a USB flash drive or digital camera memory costs at an local retailer compared to online retailers. You will likely pay double the price if you buy it locally.

The other factor in purchasing online is selection. Local retailers are limited buy how much square footage is in their store. Online retailers though, especially Amazon have very large warehouses which can hold more than 10 times as many different products as a local retailer can hope to provide it’s customers.

The issue with online retailers performing so well, has little or nothing to do with whether or not it’s customers pay taxes, contrary to what the special interests and politicians would have you believe. It’s convenience, price and selection.

The Problem With Individual States Passing Laws

There is an inherent problem with individual states passing anti-online business laws. For one, shoppers don’t know where the affiliate is located when they click on a link to go to Amazon or another retailer and so the amount of tax they will get charged could vary a great deal and the shopper won’t know this information until they go to checkout. For example if Tennessee passed a law like this, I’d be pretty ticked off to find myself getting charged 7% sales tax when if I had any prior-knowledge I would have just avoided clicking on an affiliate link at all.

The second problem is that there is potential for double taxation. Let’s just use Amazon as an example again, since they are clearly the target of these laws. Amazon is based in Washington state. So if an online shopper who lives in Washington purchases something from Amazon, they would be charged 6.5% sales tax. But what if that shopper clicked on an Amazon affiliate link from a person that happened to live in Colorado. According to Colorado’s anti-online business law they want to be paid sales tax as well.

There’s also another potential for double taxation. Many states have what is called a Use Tax. This means that citizens are supposed to report online purchases and pay sales tax. So if a person living in Pennsylvania buys something online through an affiliate in Colorado, then they could potentially end up paying sales tax twice.

These kind of issues are a lot of why Amazon has simply been cutting ties with affiliates in those states. I should also note that Amazon has been pushing for the federal government to make one unified sales tax law that would eliminate these kind of issues. The federal government though doesn’t have a whole lot of interest in pursuing it because ultimately it’s money that they won’t see either way.

And one more little twist on this concept is that many states allow individual cities and counties to charge their own sales tax on top of the state sales tax. So what happens when local politicians decide that they want a piece of the pie too?

The Truth About The Money

The states that have been pushing this Main Street Fairness thing most heavily are those with big budget shortfalls. So instead of trying to balance their budgets with cuts, they are seeking new sources of revenue. When Colorado passed their version of the anti-Amazon bill, Amazon severed ties with 4,000 affiliates in that state. Something that they said they would do if Colorado passed the bill.

Recently I’ve been hearing scare tactic radio advertisements from the Main Street Fairness Act people here in Pennsylvania. And that’s really what got me thinking about all of this. So let’s use Pennsylvania as an example now.

Pennsylvania has a 6% sales tax and some of the politicians would like to see Amazon give them that money. Here’s the thing though: Amazon affiliates make anywhere from 4-7.5% commission on sales that they generate with 6% more of a typical average. So 6% of Amazon’s sales made through affiliates is already coming into the state. The problem that state governments have though is that the money isn’t going directly to them.

Those sales commissions are going to individual citizens and small internet businesses. You know, the REAL main street people. The Main Street Fairness Act has nothing to do with protecting Main Street. In fact it hurts Main Street. When Amazon cut off 4,000 affiliates in Colorado that money stopped coming into the hands of private citizens and the state government didn’t see any of that money either because the sales stopped happening through those in-state affiliates. Everybody lost.

Amazon also operates many warehouses around the country. Four in Pennsylvania alone. I don’t have access to how many employees that adds up to but I would venture a guess that it’s at least a couple thousand with much higher than that around Christmas time. Obviously providing several thousand jobs in a state is huge and state politicians would be stupid to ignore that. I don’t know how much income these employees collectively make but I do know that there would be a decent amount of state income tax generated from all those people working. Not to mention the money they make gets spent in grocery stores and things like that that generate more sales tax revenue for the state.

So it’s pretty clear that Amazon brings a lot of money into the state, it’s just not getting into the hands of the government as efficiently as they would like it to.

Amazon avoids warehouses being considered a physical presence in the state by setting these warehouses up as separate companies. This is probably the only area where someone could maybe fault Amazon in this whole process.

So What Should States Do?

Maybe a better question would be, what could have they done 10-15 years ago? The fact is that many states lack any really significant player in the online retail world being based in their state. Consequently their constituents are spending money that benefits businesses somewhere else in the country. This is the real thorn in the side of politicians that have gotten behind the Main Street Fairness Act.

Their states are not setup for success in the ever growing online business world and money is leaving their state with no real plan of what to do about it. So instead of trying to foster online business development within the state, politicians are trying to squeeze money out of online retailers based in other states. Most notably Texas tried this. They handed Amazon a bill for $329 million in sales taxes. Amazon responded by closing its distribution center in Texas. Government regulation killed jobs once again.

Most states didn’t recognize what the future held for the internet a decade ago and so did nothing to try and bring businesses into the state. There is still hope though. The internet is still relatively young and there is room for all kinds of competition between online retailers. Instead of punishing businesses out of state and individual affiliates in the state, a better approach would be to make the tax laws as easy to deal with as possible so businesses want to operate within Pennsylvania or whatever state is considering going down this road.

What Can Be Done?

For now state governments should be content with the 6% commission that Amazon affiliates bring in and with the thousands of jobs provided at Amazon warehouses. While at the same time, they should push the federal government to create one standard law for all online retailers and states to follow.

I’m probably like most people in regards to Harold Camping and his prediction of the rapture happening on May 21st. Up until a couple weeks ago, I had never heard of him and it was only because of all the mocking media coverage that I was introduced to  Mr. Camping and his followers.

This whole thing intrigued me and so over the days leading up to May 21st I read lots of articles about people who were followers of Camping’s teachings who had sold all of their possessions or stopped making payments on their mortgage and things like that. Basically making decisions that will ruin them come May 22nd.

I also watched a lot of videos made by Harold Camping in the last few days leading up to the day he predicted the rapture. What I saw was a feeble 89 year old man. A man who had spent most of his adult life believing that through a series of mathematical equations that he could find the exact date of Christ’s return. I didn’t get a sense from him that he was willingly trying to deceive anyone but that he genuinely believes it too.

From watching these videos I felt sorry for him and his followers. May 21st had to be quite a let down for all of those people. What do they do now? What does Harold Camping do now? I think there is only one honorable thing for him to do. He needs to go on his radio program on Monday and humbly apologize. He needs to admit that he was wrong and furthermore he ought to sell off his network of radio stations and give the money back to all those who donated it to him. What other approach could he take and still retain some shred of integrity?

Admittedly I don’t know enough about Harold Camping to know a whole lot of his character. What I do know though is that most of his followers will be crushed by the Rapture not happening on May 21st. If Mr. Camping is a man of integrity he needs to own up to his mistake, and do his best to make sure that people only lose faith in his teachings, and not in God as a result of this. The Bible isn’t wrong, Harold Camping is.

Another thing to consider is this: The world reacted to Harold Camping with scoffing and mocking. Most laughed, some attended end of the world parties. If that is the reaction of the world to the news of Christ’s return (even if it was incorrect) then what will the world do as the 2012 predictions of the end of the world approach? Predictions that are not based in Christianity and not based upon Christ coming back to reclaim the Earth from darkness. I think what we just saw yesterday in people’s reactions is just a tiny preview of what it might be like as 2012 unfolds.

The Bible is full of wisdom on many subjects but one subject that is rarely discussed is what to do if you are faced with an uncomfortable situation that you’d rather not deal with. This is strange though because the Bible is full of examples on how to get out of a jam. Let’s take a look at some of the Bible’s best methods for getting out of something.

1. Blame it on your wife. (Adam) – So you’ve done something wrong and now you’ve been caught. What’s the Biblical thing to do? Blame it on your wife of course! Okay, so that didn’t really work for Adam. Maybe Eve had a better idea…

2. Blame it on the devil. (Eve) – So your husband ratted you out, now what? Say the devil made you do it of course! I mean who can say he didn’t? Well maybe God would know. That didn’t really work for Eve.

3. Feign ignorance. (Cain) – This one is usually affective, unless God is involved. If someone’s questioning you about your involvement in something, you can do the Biblical thing and just pretend like you don’t know what happened. Please don’t use this to try and get away with murder. It didn’t work out for Cain.

4. Pretend your wife is actually your sister. (Abraham and Isaac) – This one seems pretty low and it’s not something I would do but maybe other people will feel differently. If  for example some rough looking guy is eying up your wife and you are afraid of getting beat up over it. Well you could just pull an Abraham or Isaac trick and pretend that she’s actually your sister. Sure it seems a little sleazy to protect yourself and put your wife in a compromising position but hey it’s Biblical!

5. Pretend that you are mentally unstable (David) – This is my personal favorite. What better way to get out of a jam than to pretend that you are insane? And unlike many of the other things listed here, this one actually worked out for David. Might not be the best way to say get out of a traffic ticket but it could be a good way to get out of jury duty.

6. Sleep on the roof to avoid arguing with your wife. (Proverbs) – The book of Proverbs tells us that it’s better to sleep on the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife. Now back in Biblical times most roofs would have been flat, so sleeping on the roof would have been considerably easier to do. Also modern houses don’t usually have easy access to the roof, so that means climbing up a ladder in the dark. Which wouldn’t be very safe. Still, the Bible says to do it, so if you are arguing with your spouse, maybe the roof is a good escape.

7. Sail on a ship to a different country. (Jonah) - I know what some of you are saying, what if I’ve got a really big problem that I’m trying to get away from? Well thankfully the Bible once again provides the answer in the book of Jonah. Jonah wanted to avoid going to Ninevah so he got on a ship and sailed in the opposite direction. These days we would probably use a plane instead of a boat but the principle is still the same. This could work pretty well, unless what you are running from is God,

8. Sell your brother into slavery. (Joseph’s brothers) - Okay this seems like a really big problem. Your sibling is the favorite and there’s nothing you can do about it, or is there? Joseph’s brothers thought that selling him into slavery would be a good idea. And as it turns out it really was because Joseph became powerful in Egypt and was able to save his brothers from famine then. Of course 400 years of slavery in Egypt followed that but hey, at least those brothers didn’t have to put up with favoritism anymore.

9. Dress up like an animal (Jacob) – Disguises are always a popular choice for getting out of a jam. Whether you’re robbing a bank, or you are a celebrity trying to get away from the press, or you are just trying to steal your older brother’s birthright.

10. When in doubt, throw some rocks. (David) – This is another great one from David. Before he came up with his popular “act like a lunatic” routine, he was pretty good at throwing rocks at people. When all else fails, and you are still in a tough spot, start throwing rocks.

I hope that this article helps you if you are ever in a jam. In all seriousness though,  whatever you are going through in life, the Bible can provide the insight you need to make it through. Seek and you shall find.

I’ve been a user of Google Adwords off and on for  years now and recently Google was kind enough to give me $100 account credit and since I didn’t have online campaigns that I needed to run any time soon,  I decided to give TV ads a go. I’ll show you step by step what I did and then at the end I’ll tell you why I failed, hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.

The first thing I discovered was just how CHEAP advertising on television could be. Just to give you an idea, the ad that I made (I’ll talk more about that below) aired 3 times with a total of 44,475 viewers for a total cost of $39.92.

What Are You Advertising?

I didn’t have a specific product to advertise and I wasn’t too keen on spending money trying out something that I was a complete novice at. I had a domain sitting unused that I thought could work for something. Imnotarat.com was once a blog I ran and I had let it fall into disrepair. I decided that I could promote a get-rich-quick kind of product from ClickBank and tailor the ad to fit the name in some way.

Then it was simply a matter of using domain forwarding so that anyone that went to imnotarat.com would actually be sent to the vendor that I was promoting.

Creating My First TV AD

The main thing you need in order to advertise on television of course is an ad. I made the 30 second ad below on my laptop in 2 hours:

All it is is title screens, a small video clip of me acting like an idiot, and a voice over that I recorded in my home recording studio. Essentially you could do an entire ad with just title screens and a voice over made from a half-way decent microphone plugged into your computer. You don’t NEED to spend thousands of dollars to make your ad. My ad cost me nothing to create because I already had the basic tools at my disposal. But even so, you could use Windows Movie Maker and a $20 microphone and make your ad with that.

Formatting the ad when I exported it, in order to meet Google’s specifications, required changing a lot of settings in Adobe Premiere. Thankfully, Google Adwords has very detailed instructions for all the of the major video editing software packages on the market. As long as you follow the guide, you’ll be fine.

Selecting Your Target Market

First you need to set your budget. I set mine at $75 a day (not that I intended to spend that much) and at $1.50/thousand viewers (impressions). This is what I used because it fit my budget, yours may be different. I will tell you that I averaged about $0.88/thousand viewers in actual costs but it seemed difficult to find targets for anything less than $1/thousand.

When you actually try to choose a network to air your ad, here again Google gives you a lot to work with. You have a lot of options at your disposal for targeting specific demographics and what not but the results I got from that were usually well out of my price range.

So then to pick my market I simply selected a group of channels and picked time slots in the middle of the night, like 1 am – 3 am. Once I had selected my targets I went to the “Targets” tab. On the targets tab there is a section that says “Past Performance | Estimate (next 7 days)”. You’ll want to change this to “Estimates”. This will show you how often your ad is likely to air on the targets you’ve selected. Many of the ones you picked may say things like “no inventory”, ” limited”, “completely blocked”. I would just go ahead and remove these targets entirely. You’ll also want to remove ones that say “bid too low” or “budget to low”. Unless you want to spend more than you originally intended, these ad slots are out of your price range.

The first target I chose was the Boomerang network. It’s a cartoon network and according to information I read about it, supposedly plays older cartoons aimed at an older audience. The ad spots were cheap and I decided to go with it.

And this was the start of my downfall…

Where It All Went Wrong

• First I should say that I didn’t feel that my ad was compelling enough, but I figured it was good enough for what I was doing – I was wrong. Of the more than 44,000 viewers only 11 came to my website.
• Learn A LOT more about your target network before going with them. I chose Boomerang  based on a bio I read. I found out too late to cancel my ad airing that the show it would air during was POWER PUFF GIRLS! Talk about bad targeting! I also ran the ad twice more on the Fox Business Network. These cost a lot more per thousand viewers but had much smaller audiences. I got even less response, I think maybe these viewers were too educated for what I was pushing and the Boomerang viewers were too young maybe?
• I should not have used a domain redirect. Use an actual website! I had a couple visitors to a different website of mine that had typed “imnotarat.com” into Google. But since there was no actual website to go to, who knows how many people did this and ended up at random places. Better yet use a 1-800 through a site like shareasale.com. I would just guess that you might get better responses than having someone go to their computer.
• And the ultimate failure of my Google TV Ads experiment: They won’t use my account credit to pay for it. Apparently, even though they are both part of AdWords, they treat online ads and tv ads almost like separate accounts when it comes to using credit vouchers. And since I had already applied the account credit to the online portion, I had to pay for the TV ad spots out of pocket.

So there you have it. I would never have tried this if I knew I was paying out of pocket. I’m too much of a small fry in the marketing world to afford even a small tv ad budget, especially since it was completely ineffective. I’m sure there is a way to do it more effectively, I just don’t have the funds to figure it out. Perhaps some of you can do better. Good luck!

The other day I came across BookSwim, a website that rents books like Netflix rents movies: through the mail. The service works essentially the same way allowing users to select from a few different plan choices that determine the amount of books that can be rented at one time. The customer then chooses books from thousands of choices and Book Swim mails them out with a return envelope, giving the customer free shipping both ways.

For someone like me that likes to read small chunks of books over a long period of time to really be able to mentally digest all that is within the pages, perhaps Book Swim is not a good choice. But for my wife, who can read a novel in a few hours, BookSwim has got to be the coolest thing since the public library. I think public libraries are great by the way but one thing they lack in is a steady supply of new release fiction for the avid reader. That’s where BookSwim comes in, with new releases added weekly there is always something new for the reader in your family.

And speaking of family, there is another aspect of BookSwim that I appreciate: Children’s books. If you’ve got children you know how they will ask you to read the same books over and over again, much in the same way that they like to watch the same movies over and over again. Just like Netflix gave parents a glimmer of their sanity back by giving plenty of movie choices for kids, that’s what BookSwim does with books. There is very large selection of children’s books to choose from ranging anywhere from toddler age up through grade school and young adult. There are only so many times a father can read The Color Kittens to his son and keep his sanity. And once your kids are old enough to read on their own, there is nothing like a steady supply of new books available to keep them interested in reading.

I highly recommend trying out BookSwim. Join Bookswim today and read to your hearts content.

Back in the beginning of January I wrote a blog post about how much I enjoyed the wooden train sets that my son received as Christmas and birthday presents. Well my enjoyment of toy wooden trains continues and I like them so much that I decided to make an entire website dedicated to them.

Toy Wooden train (toywoodentrain.com) is a site that I’ve made to help others enjoy these kind of toys fully, while also being an excuse for me to play with children’s toys. There is a large variety of toy wooden train sets from several manufacturers and they range in price from low-end starter sets to the ridiculously expensive massive layouts. Check it out: Toy Wooden train.

There comes a special time in every father’s life and that time is when his child(ren) are finally old enough to get toys that the father wants to play with. This Christmas was that time for me.

Our son was given a Melissa and Doug wooden train set for Christmas and then for his birthday he got three more sets as well as some Thomas the Tank Engine train cars. There are a couple very cool aspects to wooden train sets that you don’t get with other styles of trains.

The first one is that you and your kids can easily pick up the tracks and create any layout you want. The track pieces fit together just like puzzle pieces. And because they are made out of solid wood, there is nothing to break on them. With a total of four sets worth of wooden tracks to work with, we are able to now create some fairly awesome layouts.

The other cool thing is that pretty much all the different brands of wooden trains and tracks will work with each other. So if your kid is into Thomas you could get a Thomas the Tank Engine and buy a more economically priced track and not have to worry about whether the two will work together.

I don’t know that I would want to try my hand at it but you can even get a model Train Track Bit Set to make your own tracks. Of course you’d need a router and router table as well but if you’ve already got them then this could be a really cool investment.

So this year I asked for a deep fryer for Christmas because ours broke earlier this year and I’ve been missing out on fried foods ever since. I can only hope that if someone gets me one that they choose one from the Best Deep Fryer Reviews top ten list, because those ones sure look nice.

Many people this year are looking for ways to spend a little less at Christmas and one way to do that is with Printable Christmas games. They are cheap and can add some great entertainment to your family gatherings this year.