Leisure

Stress This Enough

Your Holiday Stress Relief Guide Is Here

Hang in there. You can do this. You’re almost through the holiday madness. Here’s an emergency checklist of hot-buttered-rum massages and tranquil Japanese gardens to ensure you make it. Deploy as needed.

FOUR HANDS ON DECK

A Four-Hand Massage at the St. Regis

You Require: No less than 20 fingers on your skin. Immediately.
You’ll Receive: Four hours of rubdown time, four hands on your body and one quesadilla. The “Chairman’s Deluxe Package” includes two synchronized masseuses, a men’s facial and a poolside lunch. Just your own two hands there, really.

BUTTER WATCH OUT

A Hot-Buttered-Rum Massage at Solage

You Require: Just a hot buttered rum, is all. Poured all over your body, please.
You’ll Receive: A massage that uses spiced rum, cocoa butter, cinnamon and nutmeg. Technically, there’s also a shea-butter body wrap involved, but that part doesn’t make you smell like a seasonal cocktail.

SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A...

Diamond Dust on Your Hands

You Require: Just a low-key spa session, no big deal. Just kidding: diamond dust all over your arms and legs, now, or all the presents get returned.
You’ll Receive: Technically a manicure and pedicure, but really it means your arms and legs get rubbed down with diamond dust... that’s removed via magnet.

EIGHT IS ENOUGH

Gentlemen’s Quarters at Nob Hill Spa

You Require: A steak dinner. With a side of massages.
You’ll Receive: Nob Hill Spa’s “Gentlemen’s Quarters” package is an evening for up to eight friends—it’s customizable, but think scotch tasting and massages before a three-course dinner at Big 4. Bobo’s is still coming up short on the massage front.

UP A CREEK

The Osmosis Ritual Package

You Require: A feat of relaxatory supremity nearly incomprehensible to mortal man. The exact existential opposite of a mall playing Burl Ives.
You’ll Receive: Japanese gardens, a massage in a creek-side pagoda, a personal bath attendant and a field of hammocks, dammit. There. Okay. You’ll get through this. Close call.