Santa says, "Year round, a Stressless Christmas is the best Christmas."

 Santa says, "A Stressless Christmas is the best Christmas year round."

We will all agree that it has been a difficult year, but we can still go out on a high note.

 

Santa told us that the holidays are all about giving. So, when you give a charitable donation of $50 or more from now until January 18, we’ll give you hundreds of dollars off Stressless seating. It is better than a vacation at the beach because it never ends.

 

Save $400 on Stressless Mayfair recliners in all Paloma leather colors, $300 on most Stressless recliners and ottomans, including Classic Power recliners and Stressless office chairs.

 

Plus, take $200 off every sofa seat you buy. 

 

No purchase limit, so deck the halls and take this opportunity to fill your home with the comfort and beauty of Stressless furniture! So even if you live where the sun don't shine, you'll find that Stressless is a beautiful state of mind.

 

Get Stressless and Save

When is a chair more than a chair?

It was songwriter Burt Bacharach who wrote - a chair is just a chair if you are not sitting there. But a reclining chair by Stressless is so much more if you are sitting there.

Stressless has developed the patented Glide, Plus, and ErgoAdapt systems to ensure that Stressless seating delivers the ultimate in comfort every time you take a seat. The Glide System consists of a patented set of adjustments that allow you to adapt a Stressless recliner to your body's height and weight.The Plus system is a functional skeleton of springs that interprets your body’s movements as you change positions to provide increased lumbar reinforcement. While the ErgoAdapt™ tilts a sofa seat to just the right angle the moment you sit down.

How do you know?

In his discussion of Forms, the philosopher Plato asked, "When we see a particular chair for the first time how do we know it is a chair?"

If it is Stressless we know by sitting, relaxing, and experiencing the comfort that is Stressless.

Get Stressless and Save 

Now though January 14th, donate $50 to charity and save $200 on any Stressless, or $400 off the Mayfair recliner and ottoman in all Paloma leathers. 

Visit Traditions Furniture in Downtown Overland Park or Traditions Home in Wichita for details.

Meditation and Relaxation - the Stressless way

Peace

With all the different schools of thought and techniques on meditation, getting started can be overwhelming. Here’s how we start. 




Find a place of peace and tranquility. It doesn’t have to be real or near. 

French Cloister, Versailles Garden, Paradise Island Atlantis

Choose a place in your mind. Perhaps your choice is the French Cloister in the Versailles Gardens on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. It is a short walk down the sandy beach away from madding crowds at Atlantis Resort. 



Now relax in the luxurious comfort of a Stressless recliner. 

Jazz Stressless recliner in the French Cloisters

Recline your back and stretch your arms, let the patented Glide System adjust to your body’s movement. Place your hands on the armrests. Take a deep breath and focus on your breathing. Breathe in through your nose and feel your chest expand. Now breathe out through your mouth and feel your stomach extend. Repeat several times. 

Experience the comfort of the chair while you listen to the sounds of the natural world. Relaxation and Meditation Relaxation and Meditation The wind blows gentle through the dappled leaves of the trees. In the background are the rhythmic sound of the ocean waves. 

As you contemplate the stillness of your soul, observe the colors of the universe. The sky is a brilliant blue against which the crisp white and subtle greys of the clouds pass by, occasionally shading the yellow sun. The green in the grass, the soft reds and blues of the flowers. Now smell the salt in the air rising from the murmuring waves on the sandy beach. Even the verdant grass in your secret garden has its smell – rich and verdant, the smell of the earth after a morning shower. The flowers possess their own peculiar scent, a perfume that wafts on the air and enters your nose. 

Continue to gently breathe in. Even the tiny flutter of an insect’s wings can be heard as it approaches the flower. 

Be at peace in a Stressless recliner.

Jazz Stressless recliner

Welcome to Las Vegas

We are off to Las Vegas next week, destination - the World Market Center and the Venetian. The goal - finding time to relax and finding something new.

Venetian Hotel

The five-million-square-foot World Market Center in Las Vegas is located on Grand Central Parkway between the Las Vegas Strip and the historic downtown. The Venetian is on the Las Vegas Strip on the old location of the Sands Hotel where the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin would get together for fun in the sun.

World Market Center, Las Vegas

To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, it is Las Vegas, where the lights never go out.  People wandering the streets, some looking for action and some just looking. And in the casinos, at the tables and slots, gamblers test their luck. At any time of day or night, there is madness in any direction.

There is a universal sense that you can’t lose. No matter what one is doing, tonight you are going home a winner. 

Stressless Vegas recliner

The Stressless Vegas recliner is designed for comfort. You don’t need to gamble here. With soft contours and plush cushioning, the Vegas recliner is a winner any way you sit. Using the Stressless patented Glide® and Plus® systems, the Vegas responds to the slightest movement of your back, neck or legs. With a full 360° swivel feature and adjustable headrest, the Vegas Stressless recliner delivers unparalleled comfort.

Stressless Vegas recliner

 

How to skip work and watch the USA Germany soccer match.

Family Vacations

June brings to mind family vacations. A trip to the mountains, the lake, or the ocean with the people you love the most.  Family vacations should be stressless. They are not.

Stressless vacations

We are God's creatures used to having our own space and wanting, like Greta Garbo, to be alone in a Stressless recliner with a cup of coffee and a good book.


Vacations are marred with uncertain moments - reacquainting yourself with parents, siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces, and the occasional girl or boyfriend brought along. Who is this stranger?  Is he or she the real one? And what do they think of this odd lot we call family?

When time began
God made a family
As only God can,
Thankfully

In the mountains

Now throw too many people into too small a space. There are not enough bathrooms to go around.  So we fidget. Meanwhile, do we talk politics or religion?  Does so and so have a bigger house or a better job? Are there old scores to settle? Thank goodness for the times when everyone is out of the house and again, for the moment, you have time to yourself.

At the ocean

At the end of the day after the evening meal, the family gathers in the living room to tell tales or play games. One of our favorites games is "Choose this or that".

Suppose you had to choose only one of two things you dearly love, for all time.

Would it be vacations at the ocean or in the mountains? Other suggestions include chocolate or vanilla, television or computers, chairs or sofas, cars or trucks, chicken or steak, wine or beer, Angelina Jolie or Marilyn Monroe.

You get the idea, now make up your own pairings. That is the fun of it.

On the Rocky Mountain National Park Trail Ridge Road

Clouds are beautiful.

Clouds one, the coast of north Africa

Lucy Van Pelt: Clouds are beautiful. They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here in the grass all day and watch them drift by. With imagination you can see lots of things. What do you you see, Linus?

Clouds two, the Eye of God

Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like a Caribbean island, those a painting by Thomas Eakins, and those over there the Apostle Paul viewing the stoning of Stephan.

Cloud three, heavenly comfort

Valentine's Day

 
It's not a great start to the week. It is a grey Monday morning and three more inches of snow have fallen on top of ten. The dogs shudder at the thought of going out. But the bird feeder is empty, so the dogs and I trudge though the soft white piles of driven snow to add sunflower seeds to the feeders.

Back inside, at work on the computer looking outside the window, I am rewarded with a colorful display of hungry red and grey cardinals and black-eyed juncos flitting about the feeder. It makes me happy, as I listen to Lindsey Ray sing "You make me happy." 

[You can be happy and listen to Lindsey Ray by clicking on the link.]

This is the week of Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day arrives this Friday, the 14th. So, what makes your Valentine happy? Is it a box of chocolates, a dozen roses, and a night at the movies? That is a start. 

But caring about someone and making them happy takes more than a wallet or a purse. Caring about someone is a simple thing. It is  sharing what matters in life - a walk in the park, a touch of the hand, a message written in chalk for all the world to see, even a smile on a grey cloudy day. Lindsey Ray suggests that it "a kiss on my cheek, always letting me know I'm the birds and the bees." Not a bad idea on a grey, cold Monday, or any day.

How do the birds stay warm?

If you are like me, then you are wondering how birds stay toasty warm when it is bitter cold. And how about those Mallard ducks and Canadian geese that float on an icy pond? Mon dieu, en hiver, il fait froid.

As Michael Stern reports in Living on Earth, it is because of an adaption called rete mirabile. This adaption, in a nutshell, is a wonderfully complex web of arteries and veins that exchange heat and so keep the warm blood flowing to and from the heart. That and a little feather puffing to insulate the birds from the frigid air.

How is the New Year looking?

The New Year looks pretty good from the Voyager recliner by Stressless.

Stressless recliner at Arches National Park

Visit Arches National Park in eastern Utah and discover a landscape of vibrant colors, unique landforms and textures, unlike any other spot in the world.
(Image from National Park Service at the US government digital archives.)



Traditions' traveling reporter thought this image of Arches' Balanced Rock a suitable way to look at the new year. How is your new year shaping up? Here we are, two weeks into 2014; and it has been a week of "polar vortex" combined with snow, ice, and sleet, then days of balmy bliss. Well, it teaches us that the weather is anything but predictable.

Stressless Voyager recliner

Voyager in Cerise color

What is predictable is the comfort one experiences in the Stressless Voyager recliner. With its innovative Scandinavian design, the Voyager brings a new dimension to Stressless design.  The comfort is unrivaled, the leather cushioning - sumptuous and luxurious as you relax, while embracing and supporting your entire body.

Goldilocks, three bears, and a Stressless recliner

Once upon a time in a fairy-tale forest, three bears lived together in a tree-house - a Wee, little bear, a Middle-sized bear, and a Large, huge bear.

For brown forest bears, the three bears were very good-natured, even the Large, huge bear; and they got along quite nicely with the other animals in the forest, even the porcupine, who at times could be quite prickly.

I know that you heard that these bears were a family - they weren't. They were just bear friends who got along together, hardly ever arguing. Still, each bear was set in their own way, preferring their food just so, their dress just one way or the other. Each bear had their own Stressless chair in just the right size - small, medium, and large. Size mattered for each bear liked to stretch out, read a favorite book, eat cookies and drink hot cocoa before taking a nap. And no chair is as comfortable as a Stressless recliner. That, they all agree on.

Stressless Voyager recliner in sizes any bear could like

The tree-house was quite a large affair. The tree itself was the largest oak tree in the forest, so large that the three bears with their arms outstretched together could not reach around the trunk.

In the middle of the trunk was a door with a window.  Inside the door, a circular stairway took one up above where long branches extended way out over the forest floor. On the largest branch was a porch, where the three bears could watch all that went on in the forest. It was on the porch that the three bears kept the Stressless recliners in sizes large, medium and small.

One day the three bears decide to take a walk in the woods while their cocoa cools. The Large bear dresses in a bowler hat and bow-tie,  the Middle-sized one takes a walking stick of burled oak, and the Wee bear wears a green and yellow scarf decorated with butterflies. The three bears set off without a care in the world.

A little girl with golden locks wanders away from home. As her home was in the valley near the forest, it was not unusual that she should stray into the forest where the birds and other animals dwelt. By chance she discovers the bears' dwelling. She looks through the window, peeps through the keyhole, and lifts the latch to the door. Finding no one home, she walks in.

The little girl with the golden locks admires the bears' tidy house immensely. Finding one of the Middle bear's walking sticks she waves it about and breaks it. She tries to drink the Large bear's cocoa, but it is too hot. She then sits in the Wee bear's Stressless recliner and exclaims, "It's just right!"

So, she drinks the the Wee bear's cocoa and eats the Wee bear's cookies and soon falls fast asleep.

Soon enough, as you might guess, the three bears came home. When the Wee bear sees the little girl in his chair with the empty cup on the floor, it lets out a low growl.  The little girl opens her eyes, sees the three bears rising menacingly on their hind feet, jumps up and off the porch, and runs away, never to be seen again.

And as for the three bears, they laugh heartily. Then, as they were weary from their walk, they each make a cup of hot cocoa and go back to their Stressless recliners and take a long nap. As the chair was so relaxing, they didn't really miss the cookies.

Summer Vacations

"I want to go away for the summer," my college age son said the other day. "Not to the mountains, and not to the lake, but the ocean." The ocean is his choice by thoughtful deliberation. The mountains require hiking and that is work. The lake means paddling, swimming, and skiing, and that is harder work. But the ocean is lounging on the beach and that is pure play.

My son, I will call him "Will" for everyone needs a name and "Will" suits him well, is home from his first year of college. After a couple of weeks of looking for summer work, he found not one, but two jobs. He works afternoons at The Old Mill Tasty Shop dishing out milk shakes and sodas to nostalgic visitors, casual shoppers, and businessmen, who all frequent The Old Mill for it ambiance and good food. Will, then turns around and goes to Picasso's Pizza to create dazzling pizza platters for aficionados of really "gooood" pizza. Will works hard. For the first time in his life, he earns real money, experiences what it is like to get up every day and go to work. It is an eye opener. Welcome to the real world.

I suppose that is why it is not surprising that he would say, "I want to go to the beach for the summer." We all need a break from hard work.

A Night at the Oscars

Imagination at Play, Stressless

There is no argument here -  the best way to enjoy the Oscars is in the comfort of a Stressless recliner, sofa, or sectional. 

Stressless, not the kind of comfort you are used to. But something extraordinary. Comfort you never would expect from a recliner. As you sit, the chair comes alive, responding to your every movement. It is not something you have to imagine. It is something you have to feel.

Lincoln leads the list of movies with 12 Academy nominations. A history come to life movie that is well-written, well-acted, and everything else.

In addition to Lincoln, we enjoyed Argo, the true story of the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans stranded in an angry Iran after the fall of the Shah. It is a plot cooked up in Hollywood by an unsung CIA operative, and that seems too surreal to be real.

For pure action, there is Django Unchained, a movie that demonstrates that the guy in the black hat can be the good guy. And how did Django and Schultz, his German bounty hunter, travel from the Deep South to the Far West and back again in Winter? That, is the magic of Hollywood.

Les Miserables, something the kids can watch and sing along to. That is unless one remembers that the story is about Jean Valjean, a man who was imprisoned 18 years for stealing a loaf of bread, and the police officer Javert, who puts duty above justice, and a cast of despicable and  honor-worthy characters. This is Victor Hugo’s sweeping tale of revolutionary France, of crime and punishment, fear and flight, of persecution, redemption and love, all put to music.

Life of Pi - How do you make a movie about a young boy, a tiger, and a boat? Life of Pi might be the most imaginative screenplay, the story of a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey with a Bengal tiger.  With eleven Academy nominations, Pi is second in total nominations. Director Ang Lee and Adapted Screenplay writer, David MacGee are good bets to win.

What would you do if you were adrift in a ocean with a tiger? That is something to think about.

 Oh, as for personal favorite - how about Zero Dark Thirty? At its core, the movie is a story about focus, persistence, dedication, and success? That is a winning formula in any book.

Whoever wins, we will be sure to watch from the comfort of a Stressless recliner, where you don't have to imagine comfort, you experience it.

The stuff of which dreams are made on

Prospero:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158

The Traditions gang has just returned from Atlantis, the Bahamian resort and mystical namesake of the island mentioned by Plato. Like Prospero of Shakespeare's The Tempest, the writer knows that the any trip is but short entertainment that soon melts "into thin air". The palm trees, the golden sun and white sand, the gentle stir of a balmy breeze all fade in time. Life's quickening pace calls us back too soon.

Yet, we can still dream on in a Stressless recliner. Our dreams magically transport us to Atlantis and those sweet memories of sun and sand. At a younger age, the writer would hum himself to sleep with the words of his childhood, "Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream."