See? You can dress up anything to look a little more Scoprio friendly--don't ask me what the centerpiece is. 'A Black Cat Table' from 'The Book of Hallowe'en' 1919 by Ruth Edna Kelley {{PD}}

No matter what you do or don’t celebrate, it’s the holiday season–there’s no way to avoid it. In the newsletter I shared a few tongue-in-cheek suggestions for how to survive this annual time of family, food, fights, fun, fruitcake, and all those other ‘f’ words, and I’ll be sharing a little advice for each sign, one at a time. Your Nemesis, listed at the end of the sign, suggests who might be out to sabotage or just give you a hard time, while your angel is the sign energy you can call on in others for assistance, and your personal elf or cherub is the sign energy that will cheer you up and work behind the scenes to make your holiday special. Watch for the rest of the signs during the coming week.

Scorpio  Why do you begin brooding at dawn on November 2nd? Just ’cause the Dead have had their Day and won’t walk among the living for another year is no reason to pout; the holiday season seems to be all cheer and candy canes, but a current of pressure from obligations, expectations, and being trapped in the same house as all those people you fled at 18 runs below the surface like lava through Hades–there Scorp, I knew that’d bring a smile to that punim! It’s really not your time of year, in so many ways; people just rub you wrong, and the next stranger who comes up to you and says, ‘Smile! It can’t be that bad!’ while maddening holiday music plays in an over lit and overheated store may not walk away in one piece. It’s all you can do to put up with such garish seasonal displays, so when it’s your own family and friends who’re acting so . . . shallow, and nagging you for being a ‘downer,’ what’s a moody loner to do? Crawling into a cave (probably) isn’t an option, but taking a little time for your own personal kind of pick-me-up is. You might like to approach it by going off for a bit of morbid Christmas fun, sinking into any of dozens of Christmas-themed horror movies, or ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas,’ perhaps, or ‘The Comfort of Strangers,’ ‘Let The Right One In,’ anything with Vincent Price, catching up on ‘American Horror Story,’ reading Stephen King, Patricia Highsmith, Ian McEwan, Poe, or Larson’s ‘Dragon Tattoo’ series, to name a few possibilities–because really, a good, creepy tale will ease you out of ‘The Veil’ season and into that time of year we’re most likely to reflect on our lives and what we have to celebrate. You might also join the party by transforming an old tradition into a new one: how about changing the Christmas afternoon drop-in of friends and family to a candle-lit evening cocktail party–same guests, just with muted lights and music that takes the twinkle down a notch and makes it more intense, and more elegant, with ‘daring’ or more exotic food–something with unusual mushrooms, and perhaps a touch of holiday absinthe, if I know Scorpio. This might also be courtin’ time for you; you can play Pluto or Persephone to your opposite number, whether this is pursuit of a new relationship or renewal of an old one. For you, being happy during the holidays has a lot to do with not abandoning your need for a hint of darkness and for some time alone, or in intimate company–and it doesn’t hurt to honor the urge to transform some group occasion that you normally find trying into something a little more copacetic for Scorpionic sensibilities, with your best opportunity perhaps coming at the New Year, where we see old Father Time born anew as l’enfant 2012, ’cause you’re all about killing the old, and resurrecting it in a new form. Your Nemesis this holiday season: Libra, Sagittarius, or Taurus/ Your secret angel: Cancer/ Your own personal elf or cherub: Pisces