DOs and DON’Ts of planning for holidays

Given that Valentines’ Day Single’s Awareness Day was yesterday, I figured that I’d enlighten you all on some tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years. Some come from experience, but most of them are coming from the fact that I’ve see all sorts of idiocy around the holidays, working in a hotel.

The hotel I work at

1. This is easily the most important one for major holidays: if you are planning to go on any sort of ‘vacation holiday’ (i.e., Valentines’ Day get-away, or New Year’s Eve party, or summer vacation) don’t wait until the last minute to try and get reservations. Seriously, anybody who does this deserves to not get a hotel room. Yes, I said deserves.
   
   Depending on the holiday this can vary, but as a hotel employee, I recommend you call around a month in advance at the latest for something like Valentines’ Day. Independence Day? Try three months in advance, bare minimum. Big event in town like the Sun & Surf Motorcycle Run? The same, two or three months. Christmas or New Years? Two months. DON’T TRY LAST MINUTE.
   
2. Here’s one for Valentines’ Day from personal experience, fellow dudes: don’t get something completely tacky and conventional. Yes, some women do still appreciate a dozen red roses and/or a box of chocolates. Some women, though, will assume you waited until the last minute and got what you could.
   
   One of my friends in Canada, who works in a flower shop, gave this advice: “Do NOT get your girl roses. Right now they are ridiculously overpriced and at a lower quality than the rest of the year. Growers are not cutting for quality, they are cutting for quantity. Get her tulips, lilies, irises or tropicals. They are in season, cheaper and a million times less cliché.”
   
   There you have it, from someone who works with flowers. I’m not saying get her something off-the-wall weird, but find out what she really wants instead of just giving her the same thing everybody would.
   

Okay, so it was only really a set of two “DON’Ts”, rather than a list of DOs and DON’Ts. I’m okay with that, because I’m running on about ten hours sleep over the course of three and a half days. You’re lucky I’m even physically able to type! =P