"How to recapture those blissful holidays of yore? What's the secret? I searched and searched and - aftera whole hour on the Internet - I found the answer: liquor."

Yes, says Valerie Peterson, the antidote to holiday stress is, quite simply, to keep good spirits in you. Whether you need to ease the friction at the Thanksgiving table, dull the guilt of smashing one of Great-Grandmama's heirloom Christmas ornaments, or take the bite out of a New Year's Day hangover, the collection of cocktails and tips in Peterson's Holiday Helper will keep you afloat. With festive, original concoctions (such as Pilgrim Sangria and the Ginerous Regift) as well as time-honored classics (Mulled Wine and Eggnog), Peterson administers easy and delicious pick-me-ups for holiday humbugs and soothing calm-me-downs for the inevitable celebratory crises.

Whatever your seasonal malady, Peterson's Holiday Helper has the cure:

• Heading home for the holidays stuffed into a coach-class center seat?
  Fly the skies in a friendlier fashion with Whatever Gets You Through the Woods, prepared with $10 of onboard liquor and other ingredients handily available from your cooperative flight attendant.
• Run out of transparent tape with twenty-seven more presents to wrap?
  Hold yourself together with a Double-Stick Scotch Coffee, made with Drambuie, butterscotch schnapps, and piping-hot coffee.
• Memories of Christmases Past have you wishing you could change a few things (your choice of an ex-husband or your high-school hairstyle, perhaps)?
  Skip the ghastly recollections and go right for the spirits with a citrus-and-spice-infused Dickensian Smoking Bishop.

In addition to these tasty and therapeutic cocktails, Peterson's Holiday Helper is filled with vintage photographs and holiday ephemera that capture the jolly old days, as well as helpful tips to further your merry frame of mind. With easy instructions for making basics such as simple syrup and infused vodka, along with more than fifty scrumptious recipes, Peterson's Holiday Helper will help you maintain that old-fashioned feeling of peace and tranquilization - er, tranquillity - for the entire season.