(FORTUNE Magazine) – For more information on these events, see fortune.com/calendar.

1/2 Keynoter Barbara Bush holds court Saturday night at the World's Greatest Investment Event, in New Orleans, with a speech titled "Faith, Family, and Friends: My Life After the White House." Also: Milton Friedman.

3 Sadly, Barbara doesn't do phone interviews. Her loss. We could have told her to mention that 89% of all stock market gains between 1897 and 1993 occurred during congressional recesses. Congress' holiday break ends one month from today.

4 The Olympic Torch Relay begins in Atlanta. On its way to Salt Lake City, the flame will travel 13,500 miles across 46 states in the hands of 1,500 torchbearers. But get this: To keep their torch, the participants have to pay $335 (95% usually pony up). Just make the check out to Juan Antonio Samaranch.

5 Today in 1978, Seymour Cray patented the first supercomputer, the Cray-1. The man-sized machines cost $10 million and were known for their ability to solve complex mathematical problems. An obvious candidate for Ken Lay's Christmas list.

6 Last year on this date FORTUNE threw a great holiday party with a dance contest (first prize: $1,000). By the time we went to press for this issue, though, no party had been scheduled. Hmmm. Well. Moving on: The world's largest gathering of bald eagles takes place on the Chilkat River, near Haines, Alaska, around this time, but it can't seem to be pinned down to a date either. Four thousand of the indigenous North American birds come every year to feast heartily on salmon and...oh, screw it! Even the eagles have a party! Incidentally, third-quarter productivity estimates come out today. Incidentally, my should-be-dancing foot.

7 The original date of infamy--a phrase which could also apply to the release date of Michael Bay's historical soap opera, Pearl Harbor. If you make a movie about a national crisis, shouldn't you be obliged to at least make it good?

8/9 World Elephant Polo Championships, Chitwan, Nepal. One rule you don't want to break: "No more than three elephants playing in one half of the pitch at any given time." Says contestant Richard Schiffmann (his team is Tickle-and-the-Ivories): "It's as good a reason as any to go to Nepal."

10 Nobel Prize awards, Stockholm. This year the prize for economics was awarded to a group of three Americans--Joseph Stiglitz (right), George Akerlof, and Michael Spence--"for their analyses of markets with asymmetrical information." Econ for Dummies: Akerlof is famous for his paper on the market for used cars, which concludes that buying one is usually a rip-off. (It's called "The Market for Lemons." You can't make this stuff up.) Stiglitz's work on "adverse selection" and "moral hazard" boils down to the idea that accident-prone people seek out insurance and are morally casual about abusing it.

11 Larry Ellison, who sure has nailed that Die Hard villain look, speaks tonight at Internet World in New York City. His "Can't break it, can't break in" message--which, if we're not mistaken, was also the title of the speech he gave last month at Comdex--is a challenge to hackers to break the Oracle software that keeps Microsoft e-mail running. Someone please explain hubris to this man. Also today, Greenspan and friends meet in a big room, shut the door, and play strip Jenga. Because these days, it's tough to get excited about interest rates.

14 Henry Blodget's to-do list in Fiji: (1) Issue strong buy on mai tai mix. (2) Call Merrill re: Monster.com. Could it top $400? Site is great! (3) Send Jeff B. more dead flowers.

15/16 National Finals Rodeo, Las Vegas. The perennially sold-out event features $4.2 million in prize money, the Miss Rodeo America coronation, and the dazzling presence of Charmayne James, this year's top female barrel racer. Get your mind out of that barrel, pardner.

18 Milan's famous old opera house, La Scala, opens its season with Verdi's Otello. Meanwhile, Britney Spears unleashes her midriff on Tampa. Clearly American cultural imperialism has a long way to go.

19 Christmas Crunch Time Cheat Sheet: Bob's Candies in Albany, Ga., is the nation's largest manufacturer of candy canes, turning out 431 million miniature sugar-and-corn-syrup shepherd's crook replicas annually. Some end up as ornaments, of course, on the 33 million real Christmas trees that Americans buy each year, a number consistently lower than the total of fake trees bought. But what you do with your candy isn't Bob's problem: By now, his 375,000-square-foot warehouse has been transformed into a nighttime roller-skating rink, and his elves are busy doing the hokey-pokey.

20 The USDA reports on pork bellies and frozen orange juice supplies. The half of the country that doesn't get the Trading Places reference anxiously awaits news on the Future of Breakfast.

21 Ancient druids used to celebrate the winter solstice--the darkest day of the year--because they knew that things could only get brighter. In that spirit, evidently, someone chose today to announce the final numbers on third-quarter GDP.

22/23 A sampling of NFL stadiums seeing action this weekend--3Com, PSINet, Network Associates--and their sponsors' combined market cap losses since March 2000: $15,588,175,650.

24 Christmas Eve. Basic cable continues its constant feed of It's a Wonderful Life. Drinking game: a shot of Schnapps every time Jimmy Stewart says, "Gosh," "Golly," or "Gee."

25 Christmas. Remember when you were a kid, how excited you got? And how if you didn't get what you wanted you threw a fit? And now all that's changed is that you're just a better liar? Coward.

27 The Bush family usually plays speed golf in Boca Grande, Fla., this week. Is Barbara the closet ringer? Are we tallying mentions of her name this month? Does a quadratic equation have a square root? Yooou betcha.

28 Bob Pittman turns 48 today. In fact, this month is ripe with birthday boys--Michael Ovitz (Dec. 14), Bob Guccione (17th), Steven Spielberg (18th), Wayne Huizenga (29th). Shower them with gifts and do your part to make the consumer confidence index (also out today) a little more festive. Then come Sunday, round 'em up for a trip to Radio City Music Hall for the season's final Christmas Spectacular. Everyone loves a Rockette.

31 A New Year's limerick toast: This was a year that seemed totally cursed / The Internet bubble--so fleeting!--had burst / The stock market tanked / World politics stank / Let's pray that the next one's not worse.

To submit events: E-mail: calendar@fortunemail.com Fax: 212-467-1409 Mail: The FORTUNE Business Calendar, FORTUNE, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, Room 1560B, New York, N.Y. 10020