by Phil Speer

With the completion of Sunday's SmackDown! taping (which will air this Thursday on UPN), the World Wrestling Entertainment Superstars are enjoying 10 full days off.

It's the only time they have such a luxury all year, unless they're injured or, as Ivory pointed out, traveling "on airplanes all over the place" for WWE publicity tours.

Asked what he's going to do with his vacation, Spike Dudley said, only half-jokingly, "Relax, lock the door, turn the phone off. I don't want to see or hear anybody for 10 days."

The Superstars spend practically the entire year on airplanes and in hotel rooms and rental cards. Ironically, the only time that they're not on the road is the busiest travel period of the year. Indeed, when other people in North America are traveling the most, the Superstars are traveling the least.

So Matt Hardy can enjoy his just-completed, newly constructed house in North Carolina.

"I've been working on it for nine months, and it should be ready by (the time we're off), so I'll probably start putting some stuff in there," Matt said. "I'm real excited about that. It's 47,000 square feet, so it's pretty big. The basement is this big open space that I'm going to make into a wrestling museum. I've collected so much stuff over the past 10 years since I've started wrestling, so I'm going to set it all up down there. It should be pretty cool."

And the Big Show can lose money to his brother-in-law.

"I'm doing cardio and beating my brother-in-law in golf every day," he said of his vacation. The latter part of his statement was sarcastic. "My brother-in-law is a lot better golfer than me; he's probably going to kick my ass. And he's probably going to want to play for money, so I have a feeling I'm going to be hitting the ATM after every game."

Other Superstars who plan to spend quiet time with their families -- although not necessarily lose money to them -- include Jamal, Kurt Angle, D-Von Dudley, B-2 and Rikishi.

Said Angle, "I just want to spend time with my family, enjoy the holidays and look back at an incredible year -- just kind of enjoy what we've been able to do. (I'm going to) spend time with beautiful wife and my wonderful little girl, and rehab my knee from surgery."

D-Von said he'd use the time to think of new ideas for himself and Bubba Ray Dudley now that the Dudley Boyz are reunited.

"If you like what we did in Chapter 1, you're going to get a kick out of Chapter 2," he said.

Some Superstars, of course, will be traveling. Many have family members that live far away, and they'll be flying to see them. Shelton Benjamin, for example, has a daughter (Kyana) in Las Vegas with whom he'll be visiting. Ivory, who grew up in the Los Angeles area, currently lives in Washington State but has family in Southern California and will be spending her holidays there.

"I'm going to do normal stuff with my family," she said. "I'm going to do all the things I love to do in California, which are shop, buy things, spend time with friends, rat around in some of my favorite restaurants and go to some of the bars. I can't do that where I live, so I get my fill when I come to Los Angeles."

Other Superstars seemingly can't bear being off the road for 10 days, and they'll be traveling for pleasure. Lilian Garcia, for one, said she's going to Canada to ski.

"Major skiing!" she exclaimed. "I love to ski!"

Chris Jericho also plans to spend part of his vacation skiing. He'll be traveling all over Canada to hang out with friends and family.

"Even though I'm off, I'll still be on the road," he said. "But it's OK because I'll have a nice vacation."

Then there are Superstars who don't have 10 days off. As part of the WWE announce team, Lita and Tazz will spend at least part of their vacation at the WWE television studio in Stamford, Conn. And Tazz has other items on his agenda.

"I'll finally do some Christmas shopping, because being on the road and at the studio, I haven't really done any yet," he said. "That's not good. I have to move my ass on that."

Asked what he was doing with his time off, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon quickly responded, "I don't have 10 days off. I'll be writing television. I'll be booking. I'll be doing all sorts of stuff."

He added that he didn't need any rest: "To me, this is not about rest. I love this business, and there are so many different aspects of it. OK, there's no television production for 10 days. That's great. That helps the television production guys, and the (Superstars) too. I'm grateful for that. But the business doesn't stop for me. It continues on and on and on. I have to get ready for the whole new year -- where we're going and what we're doing and all of that. And not only that. People tend to think that all I do is what we do in the arenas. They don't know, from a corporate standpoint, what my responsibilities are. There are lots of different aspects to what I do, none of which are boring."

McMahon will head to Albuquerque, N.M., on Jan. 2 for the live SmackDown! that night. The RAW crew returns to the road the same day; they'll be performing back-to-back nights (July 2 and 3) in Honolulu.

In fact, many RAW Superstars are planning to head to Hawaii early to spend some downtime in the 50th state. They include Stacy Keibler, Tommy Dreamer, Goldust, Bubba Ray Dudley and Batista.

"I'm very excited," said Batista, who has never been to Hawaii. "I'm taking my wife, and we're going to go skydiving."

Batista said he's also going to visit a tattoo parlor and have the bottom part of the dragon on his back colored.

Even though his vacation is just getting started, Edge said he's already had plenty of rest. He had three weeks off during the summer when he injured his shoulder. "But that wasn't good time off, that was two hours of rehab a day," he said. And lately he's been dealing with a torn MCL in his right knee.

"I haven't been doing house shows," he said. "So basically I've just been working one day a week. I was telling my wife, 'I feel normal.' I'm getting up. We're eating breakfast. We're going out Christmas shopping. We're buying Christmas ornaments for the tree. We're going to the gym (where) I'm doing my rehab. We come back home, eat dinner, do the old Al Bundy with my hand down my pants watching TV and go to bed at a normal time. I feel so energized."

Credit: WWE.com