Kathy Landin

Christmas is a time for traditions, but it seems like every year the Christmas traditions become far less traditional and way more modern. A warm fire crackles on your HDTV. That fresh-cut Christmas tree is just an illusion created by LED lights...

When your kids go back to school, it’s almost like you go back to school, too. Teachers and childhood development professionals agree that when a child’s parents are involved in his education, he learns more and gets better grades. That means, you have just as big a responsibility in his schoolwork as he does.

At last, summer vacation time is here. If you haven’t started planning, it’s not too late. There’s a lot of summer ahead of us, and you can still find time to get out of town with your family before school starts back up again. Just make sure you you don’t fall into a few common traps and you’ll have the best vacation ever.

Here’s a look at some interesting events that took place on this day in history: 1802 – Washington, DC is granted a municipal government consisting of a mayor appointed by the president of the US, officially incorporating it as a city (More info) 1877 – Ontario, Canada’s Labatt Park, the oldest continually operating baseball grounds in the world, has its first game (More info)

Economists say we are on the road to recovery from the recession and certain indicators of financial health are on the rise, like fewer unemployment claims and wage growth. New jobs are also on the rise, but the climb is slow and, according to a new report, not all job opportunities are good ones.

Every year since 2000, except 2001 and 2003, Google has treated netizens to at least one, sometimes 17, April Fool’s Day pranks and easter eggs. And, since we know they love to play (check out their new Google Play offering), we’re hoping 2012 will be no different.

It doesn’t get a lot of press coverage and the banks are still open, but March 23 is National Puppy Day. For the seventh year, we will spend this day reflecting on what it is that we love so much about puppies. Perhaps this is a day we should have more than once a year.

Turmoil in the Middle East is nothing new. Gas prices going up is nothing new. What is new is the possibility that we could be looking at prices at the pump lurking in the neighborhood of $5 a gallon by the summer. And that’s painful.

You may not be able to search for your own Tweets on Twitter after a week, but a marketing research company in the UK can now search all the Tweets Tweeted since January of 2010. This is possible because Twitter just sold Datasift the right to sort through them.

If you were asked to name three ways to help fend off home invaders, planting bushes probably wouldn’t come to mind. But the Metropolitan Police in the UK actually recommends you do exactly that.