December is officially kissing season.

Why? First, there's the mistletoe hanging in every doorway. And second, there's the cold weather. There's nothing like a little snow on the ground and chill in the air that makes people want to snuggle.

If you need a little refresher course on how to kiss - or if you're still waiting on that first kiss and want to make it perfect - you've come to the right place:

• Get 10 Tips on How to Kiss
• Learn to Do 20 Different Types of Kisses

This guy know how to work his mistletoe.

The federal government just issued its annual report about teen drug use, and almost all the news is good. Cigarette smoking is at an all-time low; way less teens are doing meth, speed, LSD and cocaine than in recent years; and teens who drink are binge drinking less. The only bad news is that prescription drug abuse is up for 10th graders. Marijuana use, which was declining in the 90's, has stayed the same for the past 5 years.

So what's the problem? No one wants to believe that teens are doing less drugs. Look at how the headlines focus in on the tiny bit of negative news:

• More Teens are Smoking Pot (Time)
• Study Shows Pot More Popular Among Teenagers (Associated Press)
• Marijuana, Prescription Drug Use Up Among Teens (Christian Science Monitor)
• Marijuana Use No Longer Dropping Among U.S. Teens (US News and World Report)
• Teen Drug Use Survey Seen as 'Warning Sign' (L.A. Times)

One reason for this is that negative headlines are more attention-getting than positive ones. For instance, look at the one I wrote for this article. (Well, okay...at least mine's supposed to be a joke.)

But another reason is that adults tend to focus on the mistakes of teens, rather than applaud them for what they're doing right. You never get thanked for making curfew 20 days in a row - but your folks will never forget the 21st night, when you're two hours late. In the same way, the people who skimmed this report barely acknowledged the good news and zeroed in on the kind of behavior they expected from teens all along. Teens are doing more of these kinds of drugs, so all teens must be up to no good.

(And the reporters certainly don't mention that the percentages of teens doing cigarettes, pot and other drugs are down from when the they were teens, in the 70's, 80's and 90's.)

What do you think about all this? Do the headlines surprise you at all? Leave a comment!

No matter how carefully you make your choices now, you're bound to do a lot of stuff that you'll regret when you're an adult. You just can't avoid it.

What'll those regrets be? Will you wish you hadn't stressed out so much about school? Will you wish you'd worked harder on your friendships, or spent less time trying to win over that person who doesn't like you back?

(Which, by the way, are all things I regret from my teen years.)

You won't know your mistakes till you've had enough time to look back on them.

But you might get some hints from Dear Me, a new book where celebrities give advice to their 16-year old selves, or the companion blog, where ordinary folks do the same thing.

If you've got some time, it's worth checking out the blog. It could help you figure out what you should change before you grow up and it's too late.

Parents everywhere are told they have to talk to their teens about sex, but they don't always listen. New research shows that a lot of them wait so long to have the sex talk, by the time they do, their kids are already having sex.

Why do they wait so long? Because this stuff is just as awkward for them as it is for you. Which is a shame, because teens who are open with their folks about sex generally tend to make safer and smarter decisions.

If your parents are too nervous to breach the subject, toughen up and talk to them first. Yes, it'll be awkward, but you'll get some very valuable info that's perfectly tailored to your life.

How to Talk to Your Parents About Sex