January is named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings. And war.

A year is not actually 365 days long. It’s 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds.

The British Parliament had to eliminate 11 days to realign the Julian with the previously used Gregorian calendar.

There are still over forty different calendars in use around the world today.

The ball that is dropped in New York on New Year’s Eve weighs over 1,000 pounds, uses over 9,000 LED’s and is made from Waterford Crystal.

The record for the largest firework display consisted of 66,326 fireworks and was achieved by Macedo’S Pirotecnia Lda. in Funchal, Madeira, Portugal, on December 31, 2006.

In the United States alone, over 18 million gallons of alcohol is consumed on New Year’s Eve.

Most people spend more time planning a one-week vacation than they spend planning their life.
- Unknown

People are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Years and Christmas.
- Unknown

New Year’s Day:  Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
- Mark Twain

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
- Oscar Wilde

May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.
- Joey Adams

Although some think that the end of the year is a time to reflect on the past and plan for the future, it may be just as wise to forget both and live in the present…

Bring the past only if you are going to build from it.
- Doménico Cieri Estrada

Stop acting as if life is a rehearsal. Live this day as if it were your last. The past is over and gone. The future is not guaranteed.
- Wayne Dyer

You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.
- Jan Glidewell

We’ve done our best to find a quote by an African American to touch on each of Kwanzaa‘s core principles. Bahá’u'lláh is clearly not African American, but it’s such a fantastic quote we made that one exception for the quote on unity:

Umoja (Unity)
So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.
- Bahá’u'lláh

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)
Self-determination has to mean that the leader is your individual gut, and heart, and mind or we’re talking about power, again, and its rather well-known impurities. Who is really going to care whether you live or die and who is going to know the most intimate motivation for your laughter and your tears is the only person to be trusted to speak for you and to decide what you will or will not do.
- June Jordan

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)
One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts.
- George Washington Carver

Nia (Purpose)
God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.
- Marcus Garvey

Kuumba (Creativity)
Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible.
- Pearl Bailey

Imani (Faith)
Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr

Oh, and you might want to reconsider that whole “standing under the mistletoe” thing.

Over 35 million “real” Christmas trees are cut down and sold in the U.S. every year.

The average American household mails out 28 Christmas cards each year.

During the holiday season, more than 1.76 billion candy canes will be produced.

If piled on a football field, the 2.65 billion Christmas cards sold each year in the U.S. would reach ten stories in height.

In the original Anglo-Saxon, “mistletoe” literally meant “dung twig”.

Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.
- Wendy Cope

There is a remarkable breakdown of taste and intelligence at Christmastime.  Mature, responsible grown men wear neckties made of holly leaves and drink alcoholic beverages with raw egg yolks and cottage cheese in them.
- P.J. O’Rourke

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it ‘Christmas’ and went to church; the Jews called it ‘Hanukka’ and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say ‘Merry Christmas!’ or ‘Happy Hanukka!’ or (to the atheists) ‘Look out for the wall!’
- Dave Barry

Christmas gift suggestions: to your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.
- Oren Arnold

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
- Benjamin Franklin

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.  Don’t clean it up too quickly.
- Andy Rooney

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!
- Charles Dickens

If you’ve visited in the last few months, you know we’ve been excerpting the Devil’s Dictionary. Finally, we’ve reached the end. So why have we been doing this? We decided it was time for a re-think of Ambrose Bierce’s seminal piece of cynical humor, so we’re doing an abridged and contemporized version in book form in march. Stay tuned.

WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace.

WEDDING, n. A ceremony at which two persons undertake to become one, one undertakes to become nothing, and nothing undertakes to become supportable.

WHEAT, n. A cereal from which a tolerably good whisky can with some difficulty be made, and which is used also for bread.

WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.

X – in our alphabet being a needless letter has an added invincibility to the attacks of the spelling reformers, and like them, will doubtless last as long as the language.

YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)

YEAR, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

ZEAL, n. A certain nervous disorder afflicting the young and inexperienced. A passion that goeth before a sprawl.

ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man’s burden.

For many, the holidays are a time of love, sharing, and celebration. For others, it’s a time of sales goals, missed bonuses, and grumpy, anxiety-ridden shoppers. Most “motivational quotes for selling” really suck. They’re all about lofty values that exceed the scope of the real task at hand, and utterly devoid of humor, which is half of what selling is about. We tried our darndest to come up with something funny, and failed. We’ll be back with something better in this category soon.

Timid salesmen have skinny kids.
- Zig Ziglar

If you work just for money, you’ll never make it. But if you love what you are doing,and always put the customer first, success will be yours.
- Ray Kroc

For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.
- Zig Ziglar

And in the meantime, these are for the sales managers. Lay off, will ya?

If you put good people in bad systems you get bad results. You have to water the flowers you want to grow.
- Stephen R. Covey

A salesman, like the storage battery in your car, is constantly discharging energy. Unless he is recharged at frequent intervals he soon runs dry. This is one of the greatest responsibilities of sales leadership.
- R. H. Grant