Readers Digest NZ Dec/Jan 2025

BY Megan McArdle from the washington post Our Best Worst Christmas Idea Ever ... ... had four legs and a wagging tail—a puppy! T here is little more charming than the idea of a Christmas puppy. The festive music, the cooing family, that adorable little face with the holiday lights shining from its eyes. The reality, however, is something of a wreck. There you are trying to bake Christ- mas cookies, close out the year-end books or shepherd the kids through pageants and parties … and there is the puppy, needing to be let out ev- ery two hours. The time not spent mopping up accidents will instead be devoted to keeping the puppy from chewing on the tree, swallowing or- naments or knocking over the Nativity scene. And you will be trying to man- age this on too little sleep, because, did I mention? The puppy needs to be let out every few hours, including at night. My husband and I knew all this, all the reasons against it, and then went ahead and got a Christmas puppy anyway. Our miniature bullmastiff was, as expected, adorable: the melting eyes, the oversize paws, the mini crocodile teeth that he ineptly tried to maul us with. We named him Huckleberry and drove him back from Indiana to our home in Washington, D.C., through hills dusted with a fairy mist of snow. illustrations by Tom Newsom LIFE WELL LIVED readersdigest.co.nz     113 Life Well Lived reader ’ s digest