Imagining the Holidays

"I have the gondola here. I shall follow with the luggage in the vaporetto."

Ah, to arrive in Venice and be met by a valet.

"Palazzo. Pronto."

To be 19 years old. To be finding your way toward your destiny as an artist. To be in love for the first time, with the beautiful scion of a family that owns some truly excellent real estate, and doesn't mind if the kids have friends over. To make your way up the cool, mossy stone stairs from the water door to the piano nobile "in full sunshine, ablaze with frescos of the school of Tintoretto." To open the shutters in your own room and find a view of the Grand Canal and its "incomparable pageant."

I would like to be Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited for one of his two weeks in Venice, being shown the "immense splendours of the place" by a "midget Venetian nobleman to whom all doors were open." I would like to go to a ball at the Corombona Palace on a night "such as Byron might have known" and to eat "melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning."

I would like to be Charles for that deliriously happy holiday week, before Waugh writes the cruel destiny that will overtake him. Before his beloved becomes a hopeless drunk, before he prostitutes his talent for an easy and banal success, makes a bad marriage, abandons his kids and loses the love of his life (and her amazing Baroque pile) for metaphysical reasons that never, to me, seemed quite that compelling.

-- Geraldine Brooks, author of "March"

Nancy Drew | in Carolyn Keene/Mildred Benson's series

I'd love to be Nancy Drew for the holidays. She solves mysteries, and there are lots of them coming up now. The Mystery of How Long To Cook the Turkey, The Mystery of Finding Chairs for All These People, The Mystery of Making that Onion Dip You Had That One Time, The Mystery of the Finger Swipe on the Lemon Meringue Pie, and The Mystery of Getting the Christmas Tree To Stand Up Straight.

Nancy Drew can find anything, a skill that comes in handy at the holidays. I could find a parking space at the mall. Or that tablecloth I put somewhere and the iron to press it with. Okay, maybe I don't need the iron -- let's not get crazy.

Nancy Drew is brave. She wouldn't be afraid of the holiday crowds, even in the Apple store. The crowds in the Apple store terrify me. I'm afraid if I got in there, I might never get out again. I'd still be there at iNew Year's, begging for service at the Genius Bar.

We should all channel Nancy Drew around the holidays. She's always merry. This is a woman who can look on the bright side of a major felony.

And if we were Nancy Drew, we'd be able to solve the biggest mystery of all:

How To Pay the VISA Bill, Come January.

-- Lisa Scottoline, author of "Daddy's Girl"