Game day, gathering the gang after a bike ride, snacking during family game night — there are lots of times when a pizza would be great outdoors.

Make your pizza on the grill, and nobody has to miss any of the fun!

It’s easier than you’d think. Choose a ready-made crust from your grocer’s refrigerator section. Some come in tubes and some are pre-baked. You can also make your own pizza dough in the morning, and then just pull it out when you’re ready to put together your pizza.

Add sauce, cheese, and your favorite toppings. In Rome, there’s a pizzeria on every corner, and they just lay slices of mozzarella on the pizza base with fresh tomatoes and basil. Go American style with a jar of pizza sauce, grated cheese, and pepperoni. Or get creative! Veggies, meat, and your favorite sauce can be combined in lots of ways: garlic Alfredo sauce with cooked chicken and artichoke hearts, pesto with mushrooms and cooked sausage — you’re limited only by your imagination.

Use a Primo glazed pizza baking stone for best results. It’s non-stick, it comes in two sizes to fit your grill, and you will get that crisp-soft texture that everyone loves. Clean up is easy, too.

There are a lot of stories out there about Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Some of them are true, but not all.

Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year. Nope. The Saturday before Christmas is consistently the biggest shopping day of the year. Black Friday is just the craziest shopping day of the year.

It’s called Black Friday because this is the day retail stores get into the black for the year. While it’s true that some stores make most of their sales for the year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that isn’t true for all stores. Nor is it true that most stores run at a loss (“in the red”) until Thanksgiving. In 1966, the Philadelphia police coined the term to describe the difficult day they expected with traffic and parking. Later, as the expression spread, the “black ink”  story grew up to explain the expression. Now, “Black Friday” is just a red letter day for avid shoppers.

Cyber Monday is for online shopping; Black Friday is for shopping with your feet. Not necessarily. Plenty of online stores have everyday deals better than what you’ll find locally on Black Friday, not to mention the convenience of shopping in your jammies and having your stuff delivered (Massi Decor even offers you free shipping). What’s more, you may find items in stock at your favorite online retailer even on Black Friday when stores run out — sometimes because they’ve only had one or two of an advertised loss leader.And of course many online merchants now hold Black Friday sales, too.

Black Friday deals are the best. Sometimes they are, especially on big ticket items, but often they’re not. Typically, there’ll be one or two items at deep discounts in a store, and the rest are special buys (sometimes of lesser quality), items brought in the previous week and marked up high so they can appear to be deeply discounted, or just ordinary prices with bigger signs. What’s more, many retailers discount further later in the season. This myth makes some shoppers think they’re getting great deals, and others convince themselves that they are to make themselves feel better for having gotten up so early.

If you like to go out shopping on the day after Thanksgiving for the sense of danger or the thrill of the crowds, go for it. Check prices online before you go, though, and make sure you’re comparing the same price and model. Stores will still be open in December.

You may know that being outdoors is good for you — but maybe you figured that was because being outdoors so often involves vigorous things like hiking and biking and swimming, all of which get your heart rate up and work your muscles.

It’s not that simple. It turns out that merely being outdoors is good for you. Fresh air is invigorating, certainly, and being active is good for us, but there are benefits beyond the obvious physical ones.

It turns out that being in nature, being outdoors, seeing trees and things — this is good for our health in ways that are hard to fully understand. Hospital patients who see trees and sky out their windows recuperate faster. Diabetics keep their blood sugar levels under control better when they experience the outdoors, even if they’re not more active while the do it. People who spend time outdoors are happier and healthier than those who don’t, across the board, according to recent rigorous examination of numerous studies.

How do you make sure that your family gets that outdoor time, when indoors has things like video games to lure everyone in?

Make it comfortable outdoors, for one thing. Comfortable patio furniture keeps people outdoors longer. Even if you like to garden or take part in outdoor sports, a nice chaise longue makes it more likely that you’ll hang out with friends, family, or a good book for a little while longer.

Make it look good, too. A tree, some plants, or just a great view off in the distance will make you happier on your veranda. Decorate your outdoor rooms the way you decorate your indoor rooms. And get the family to pitch in and help clean up those toys or the remains of the vegetable garden — you can point out that it’s just more healthy outdoor time.