1. Love Shack—Glee Cast Version (4:21)
2. It’s Not Right But It’s Okay—Glee Cast Version (4:18)
3. Starships—Glee Cast (3:33)
4. Hungry Like The Wolf/Rio—Glee Cast Version (3:03)
5. Payphone—Maroon 5 (3:51)
6. What Makes You Beautiful—Glee Cast Version (3:18)
7. You Can’t Touch This—Glee Cast Version (4:07)
8. Felt—Garbage (3:26)
9. Up Up Up—Glee Cast Version (4:33)
10. Good Riddance—Glee Cast Version (2:31)

Ingredients

1 large bunch of kale, approximately 12 cups
2-3 T. extra virgin best quality olive oil
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1. Remove the ends of the stems of the kale and rinse well. Dry the leaves well using a salad spinner or towel. Tear the leaves into bite size pieces.
2. Place the dried kale leaves into a mixing bowl. Pour the olive oil and massage into the leaves well. Place leaves on a baking sheet – might need to divide between two baking sheets. Season the leaves sea salt and pepper to taste and then place them into the oven to bake.
3. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the leaves are crunchy and slightly browned—not burned—around their edges. Let cool on rack for 30 minutes before munching!
Serving size: 1 cup. Calories: ~50

Ingredients
5 T. unsalted butter
1 cup large-diced fennel bulb, tops and core removed
2 pounds celery root, peeled and (¾-inch) diced
8 ounces Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and (¾-inch) diced
3 Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and (¾-inch) diced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ cup good apple cider
¼ cup low fat 2% milk

Directions
1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a shallow pot or large sauté pan. Add the fennel, celery root, potatoes, apples, 1½ teaspoons salt and ½ teaspoon pepper. 2. Sauté the vegetables, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, about 4 to 5 minutes. Add the cider and tightly cover the pot. Simmer over low heat (I pull the pot halfway off the heat) for 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are very soft. If the vegetables begin to burn or they seem dry, add another few tablespoons of apple cider or some water.
3. When the vegetables are cooked, add the milk and cook for 1 more minute. Transfer the mixture to a food mill fitted with the coarsest blade and process. (You can also use a food processor but the texture will be smoother than with the food mill.) Taste for salt and pepper and return to the pot to keep warm. Serve warm.
Serves 8-10. Serving Size: ½ cup.

Here are five small steps that will help you get fit and lose those pesky holiday pounds…you know that five to ten pound plus weight gain that seems to be hovering right about above your pant line to create a horrifying muffin top. These steps may seem small, but I promise if you implement them daily you’ll see some big results—faster than you think!

1. Climb the stairs. Climbing stairs is one of the best ways to green your lifestyle and burn a few extra bonus calories during your day. According to this American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) study conducted, you’ll burn about .11 calories climbing up each stair, and .05 calories descending each stair. This approximates to burning 10 calories per minute. Plus, although elevators do not expend much electricity (approximately 5 kWH per floor), everything DOES add up—or every little bit helps save our planet. For example walking up and down 3 flights of stairs instead of using an elevator saves 15 kWh a day or 450 kWh per month. That’s enough to power a 37″ Plasma TV for 3 hours. Or if you live in a high rise in a densely populated city, primarily using stairs will save your car the energy equivalent of more than 1 gallon of gasoline per month.
2. Add an extra ten minutes of cardio to your regular cardio routine. On average most people will burn about 80 calories in ten minutes. Multiply that times three to four times per week and you’ll increase your calorie burn by roughly 250 or an extra 1,000 calorie per month.
3. Lift weights to lose weights. Weight lifting helps build and maintain lean tissue. On average lean tissue burns six calories per pound per day (defined as your Resting Metabolic Rate) versus two calories for a pound of fat per day. Plus, lean tissue takes one-fifth the space of fat—not to mention the positive aesthetics of having a sleek, defined physique.
4. Curb your alcohol consumption. Most cocktails have 350+ calories per glass. Alcohol is a simple sugar flavored with highly caloric sugary syrups and/or juices, which are digested first by your gut. As your gut can process about 600 calories per meal (and most meals are about 500 calories), you’ll be storing on average 300++ calories of FAT every time you have a cocktail with your meal. If your goal is to lose weight, I recommend you limit your wine to a four once pour or cocktail to only two drinks per week. Stick to the “Skinny Cocktails” that are flavored with lower calorie alcohol and sugar free sweeteners such as my Skinny Margarita.
5. Eat on a salad plate. Today most plates are twelve inches in diameter. That’s three inches more than they were twenty years ago. In other words we’ve super-sized our appetites—and waistlines too! Most salad plates are seven inches in diameter, so eating your meals on a salad plate will automatically portion control your intake by roughly one third. (Just make sure you don’t pile your plate.)

THE MATH: Weight loss is a mathematical equation. Food consumed daily + (-) calories burned exercising – daily calories burned (~2,220) = Weight Loss (or sadly gained). So let’s deduct and then add up all the calories my five simple steps listed above will approximately save you in a week:

STEP 1: Figure 10 minutes/day climbing stairs x 7 = 700 calories/week
STEP 2: Figure ~300 calories/week
STEP 3: Adding 15 minutes of weight lifting 3 times/week will help you burn ~500
calories/week
STEP 4: -350 calories x 4/week and switch to 2 skinny cocktails (100 calories
each) = -1,200 calorie debit
STEP 5: Eating on a 7” plate will delete ~1/3 from your daily caloric intake or
1,500 calories/day versus ~2,200 calories/day keeping you status quo.
This will yield a -700/calorie/day or -3,500/week debit.

These steps will equal a ~6,200 calorie loss per week or approximately a 1 ¾ pound weight loss per week. So what are you “weighting” for? Get stepping NOW and good luck:)!

Ingredients

1 T. fresh ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
¼ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground cardamom

Directions

Mix all spices together well and store in an airtight small container. When making your coffee, it’s best to place a ¼ tsp. of the mix in the bottom of your coffee cup, and then pour the coffee over it. To keep it calorie conscious, add non or low fat milk and a calorie free or low cal sweetner.

Winter Solstice Spice Blend, $6.95 per half-pound. Available at all Groundwork stores and on the website.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups unbleached cake flour
½ cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 ¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ ginger
¼ tsp. cloves
½ cup canola oil
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
½ 15 ounce can or 1 cup canned pumpkin (preferably organic and make sure it’s not pumpkin pie mix)
3 medium sized apples, such as pink ladies or fuji
2 tsp. pure vanilla
2 T. packed light brown sugar
1T. butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly spray 9-inch spring form pan with light cooking oil spray. Cut and place parchment paper on bottom of pan. Wrap aluminum foil to entirely cover bottom outside of pan. Melt 1 T. of butter in small glass bowl, and then spread evenly on bottom of pan. Combine ¼ tsp. cinnamon and brown sugar in bowl and spread evenly over butter on bottom of spring foam pan.
2. Sift together all flour, baking soda, and remaining spices in medium sized mixing bowl.
3. Combine vanilla, canola oil, sugar and eggs (adding one at a time). Beat for three minutes or until fluffy. Next, add pumpkin.
4. Gently fold in sifted dry ingredients.
5. Coarsely grate one apple and then fold into mixture.
6. Peel and thinly slice remaining two apples length-wise. Layer slices beginning in center outward in slightly over lapping circular pattern. Pour batter over layered apples. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out dry. Remove aluminum foil immediately. Allow cake to cool for 30 minutes on rack before unmolding.

Serves: 8 to 10.

Sales of fake trees are expected to approach 13 million this year, a record, as quality improves and they get more convenient, with features like built-in lights and easy collapsibility. All told, well over 50 million artificial Christmas trees will grace living rooms and dens this season, according to the industry’s main trade group, compared to about 30 million real trees.

Kim Jones, who was shopping for a tree at a Target store in Brooklyn this week, was convinced that she was doing the planet a favor by buying a $200 fake balsam fir made in China instead of buying a carbon-sipping pine that had been cut down for one season’s revelry. “I’m very environmentally conscious,” Ms. Jones said. “I’ll keep it for 10 years, and that’s 10 trees that won’t be cut down.” But Ms. Jones and the millions of others buying fake trees might not be doing the environment any favors.

In the most definitive study of the perennial real vs. fake question, an environmental consulting firm in Montreal found that an artificial tree would have to be reused for more than 20 years to be greener than buying a fresh-cut tree annually. The calculations included greenhouse gas emissions, use of resources and human health impacts. “The natural tree is a better option,” said Jean-Sebastien Trudel, founder of the firm, Ellipsos, that released an independent study in 2009 year. The annual carbon emissions associated with using a real tree every year were just one-third of those created by an artificial tree over a typical six-year lifespan. Most fake trees also contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, which produces carcinogens during manufacturing and disposal.

Ellipsos specifically studied the market for Christmas trees bought in Montreal and either grown in Quebec or manufactured in China. Mr. Trudel said the results would most likely differ for other cities and regions. Excessive driving by consumers to purchase real trees could tip the scales back in favor of artificial trees, at least in terms of carbon emissions. Over all, the study found that the environmental impact of real Christmas trees was quite small, and significantly less than that of artificial trees — a conclusion shared by environmental groups and some scientists. “You’re not doing any harm by cutting down a Christmas tree,” said Clint Springer, a botanist and professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. “A lot of people think artificial is better because you’re preserving the life of a tree. But in this case, you’ve got a crop that’s being raised for that purpose.”

Makers of fake trees argue that the environmental evidence isn’t quite so clear-cut. “If you buy an artificial Christmas tree and reuse it for at least five years, it’s absolutely a green thing to do,” said Thomas Harman, founder and chief executive of Balsam Hill, a maker of premium artificial trees. Mr. Harman said that the average amount of car travel by consumers to buy a real Christmas tree outweighed the added energy and pollution costs of buying an artificial tree from China. The American Christmas Tree Association, the main trade group for artificial tree makers and retailers, says its own study found that it took 10 years of use before a fake tree became better for the environment than a real one, at least in terms of carbon emissions. Yet the trade-offs are not immediately apparent to consumers and even some tree growers.

On a bitterly cold afternoon at the Winter Market at New York City’s Union Square this week, Lizza Stanley browsed for Christmas trees with her husband, Brian. They wondered if an artificial tree would be better for the environment because it could be reused time and time again. The tree seller, Rob Rodriguez from Van Houten Farms of Orangeville, Pa., was of little help. “I don’t even know for sure,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “I would guess natural?” The balance tilts in favor of natural Christmas trees because of the way they are grown and harvested. Close to 400 million trees now grow on Christmas tree farms in the United States, according to the National Christmas Tree Association, which represents growers and retailers of real trees. About 30 million trees are harvested annually. The living trees generate oxygen, help fix carbon in their branches and in the soil and provide habitat for birds and animals, Mr. Springer said. Christmas tree farms also help preserve farmland and green space, particularly near densely populated urban areas where pressure for development is intense. “It allows people with land that may not be the best farmland to have a crop that they can actually make a profit on, and not be under pressure to sell out to developers,” said Mike Garrett, owner and operator of a Christmas tree farm in Sussex, N.J.

After the holidays, real trees can continue to serve a purpose. New York City, for instance, offers free curbside recycling for trees, which are turned into compost. The city’s parks department also provides a free mulching service for trees at several locations after the holidays. In 2009, nearly 150,000 trees were composted or mulched in the city. Artificial trees, by contrast, are manufactured almost exclusively in Asia from plastic and metal and cannot be recycled by most municipal recycling programs. After six to 10 years of use, most will end up in a landfill. Melly Garcia, who bought a six-foot fir on the Upper East Side of Manhattan this week, said she was certain that the real tree was the correct environmental choice. “The trees are coming from a sustainable place, and if you dispose of it properly, it goes back to the earth,” she said. “So I’m at peace with that.”

Jami Warner, executive director of the American Christmas Tree Association, the group promoting artificial trees, said that neither kind of tree had much of an impact on the environment — “especially when compared to something that most of us do every day, like drive a car,” she wrote in an e-mail. On that point, Mr. Trudel of Ellipsos agrees. “When you really consider it, if you exchange a couple of days of commuting by car with carpooling or riding a bicycle, you’ll completely overcompensate for whatever the impact of the tree is,” he said. “It’s not such a big deal. Enjoy your tree, whichever one you prefer.”

1. Winter Wonderland–Eurythmics (3:34)
2. All I Want for Christmas Is You–Michael Bublé (2:51)
3. Deck the Rooftop–Glee Cast (2:29)
4. The Christmas Song–Bing Crosby (2:45)
5. Drummer Boy–(feat. Busta Rhymes) Justin Bieber (3:45)
6. Last Christmas–Wham! (4:45)
7. White Christmas–Bing Crosby (2:57)
8. Jingle Bells–Harry Connick, Jr. (5:26)
9. The Christmas Song–Nat “King” Cole (3:08)
10. Do They Know It’s Christmas–Glee Cast (3:25)