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For years, your mother, grandmother or spouse has taken care of cooking the special meals to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's Eve and other holidays that fall in December. But this year, you must take charge of the cooking. You're feeling a little intimidated -- but you still want to try to cook most of the meal at home, instead of eating out or ordering pre-prepared turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce from a restaurant or grocery store.

Jodi Lee Duryea, lecturer and chef instructor for the University of North Texas School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management, has some tips for newcomers to cooking holiday meals. Duryea, a former executive chef and sous chef, says planning is her number one tip.

"Plan out the meal and when dishes will need to be in the oven. And plan on dishes that can be made ahead, such as cranberry chutney, cakes and pies," she says. "Make sides that you already know how to make. Try not to do too many new things -- it becomes stressful."

She gives several suggestions for making turkey and stuffing:

• Purchase frozen turkeys at least three days before the meal and defrost them in the refrigerator.
• Baste a turkey with lots of butter. Put some butter with salt, pepper and herbs under the skin over the breast to help keep the turkey moist. Put apples, oranges or onions in the cavity to help flavor the pan drippings.
• Don't forget to remove the bag of giblets from the turkey.
• Instead of putting the turkey on a rack to roast it, cut whole onions in quarters and cut stalks of celery and peeled carrots into chunks. Place the vegetables on the bottom of a roasting pan or baking sheet and place the turkey on top of the vegetables to roast it.
• When the turkey is cooked, use the vegetables to flavor gravy. Remove the turkey and add canned or homemade chicken stock to the pan. Swirl it around and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then mix a tablespoon of cornstarch with water, stock, wine or juice, and whisk the cornstarch mixture into the pan until the gravy thickens slightly. Strain and serve.
• Stuffing, Duryea says, is very easy to make. "You can put almost anything in it," she says. "Cook chopped onions and celery and anything else you want to put in it until soft. Then add two to four cups of liquid -- stock, broth or water -- and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Pour the vegetables and liquid over dried bread crumbs, add an egg or two and additional seasoning, and it is ready to go into the refrigerator until you need to heat it."
• Additional items for stuffing could be chopped apples, chopped cranberries, dried fruit, sausage, bacon, fresh herbs like sage and marjoram, chopped walnuts or pecans, or the giblets diced up from the turkey.

Duryea has two more bits of advice for a first-time holiday meal cook:

"Don't worry about the calories. Instead, go for a walk after dinner. It's good for the digestion," she says. "And remember that this is supposed to be fun, and doesn't have to be perfect."

She recalls a friend whose mother hated to cook, but cooked the holiday meal for her family anyway, and "the meal just wasn't edible."

"They ended up ordering pizza. Everyone still had a really good time because they were together," Duryea says.

Duryea may be reached at 940-369-8670 or at jduryea@unt.edu.

DENTON (UNT), Texas – The holidays are coming and it's easy to get caught up in all the excitement of the season by letting your best intentions get the better of your bank account.

Whoa, Rudolph!  Don't forget your money management skills over the holidays. Paul Goebel, director of the Student Money Management Center at the University of North Texas, says that the holidays are a time of year when you need to demonstrate greater control of our finances. 

Goebel and his team offer the following tips to avoid holiday debt:

• Make a list. List out the people you will be buying gifts for and the amount you will be spending on each gift. Keep the list with you as you shop, so you don't let generosity put you in the red.
• Make a budget and stick to it! Plan what you are going to spend on gifts and travel this holiday season and make a commitment to work the plan. If a gift is more than you can afford or had planned to spend, then you need to make another decision.
• Use cash. When you pay in cash, you don't have to worry about the bills coming in the mail after the holidays are over. A good tip is to put the cash you have planned and dedicated for your holiday shopping in an envelope. After each purchase, put the receipts in the envelope to keep track of your purchases. Remember -- once the envelope is empty, you're done with your shopping!
• Think before you buy. Plan out your gift buying before you hit the stores. Use the internet and shopping search engines to comparison shop. Use coupons, discounts or other incentives to make the most of your shopping budget.
• Avoid temptation. Just because something is on sale does not mean it's a bargain or needed. Stick to your list and budget.
• Honesty is the best policy. Don't fool yourself if you and your family are facing harder economic times this year. Overcompensating by purchasing gifts you cannot afford simply to make a situation look better than it really is will only cause greater frustration and stress. Be honest with yourself and your family. If you need to cut down or back on your holiday shopping and gift giving this year – do it! Remember time spent with loved ones or a homemade gift are often the best gifts that you can give.

Visit http://moneymanagement.unt.edu for more information on the UNT Student Money Management Center or to view additional money management resources.

Goebel can be reached at goebel@unt.edu or 940-369-7761.

Consumers spent more than $880 million on online merchandise last year on Nov. 30 -- Cyber Monday, according to comScore.com, a company that measures the digital world. Cyber Monday was the second highest spending day of 2009. In addition, comScore.com reported that more than half of the dollars spent online at websites of U.S. retailers originated from work computers -- 52.7 percent.

Dr. Kiseol Yang, assistant professor of merchandising at the University of North Texas, is available to discuss Cyber Monday, which this year falls on Nov. 29. Shop.org, part of the National Retail Federation, first coined the term in 2005 after research showed that 77 percent of online retailers reported a significant increase in sales the Monday after Thanksgiving in 2004.

Yang will discuss behavior of shoppers who go online on Cyber Monday, including those who visit discount sites to sign up for different retailers' promotions instead of actually making a purchase, and the growing number of retailers who are using Facebook and Twitter to provide shoppers with instant access to their promotions. Bestcybermondaysales.com will tweet retailers' deals the entire day, beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Nov. 29, and Facebook.com/cybermondaysales will release new deals from selected popular retailers every 10 minutes on Cyber Monday.

In addition, Yang will discuss applications for mobile phones as the next technology that shoppers may use on Cyber Monday and the rest of the holiday shopping season. She recently surveyed 400 mobile services users about adoption of shopping applications, publishing the results in the June 2010 issues of "Journal of Consumer Marketing."

Yang notes that several leading U.S. retailers, including Amazon, Ralph Lauren and Sephora beauty and cosmetics already have mobile applications. Sephora customers can input a product's barcode into their phones to read other customers' reviews, she says. Ralph Lauren customers only need to scan a code appearing in print advertisements, store windows and mailers to shop via their phones, and can sign up for mobile alerts about store openings and other events.

Yang says her survey results indicated that shopping convenience -- saving time by not driving to stores, obtaining promotion information via cell phones and receiving customized product information -- is not the only factor influencing if Americans will use mobile shopping services. She discovered that Americans also want the technology to make shopping more entertaining and be user friendly.

"In order for mobile sites and features without technological system difficulties to be available to consumers, it is crucial for retailers and marketers to design mobile sites and interfaces for both high-end and low-end devices," she says.

Yang may be reached in her office at 940-369-8210 or by e-mail at Kiesol.Yang@unt.edu.