On To Christmas!

Leftover pie gone? Good. Let's get on to how to defend ourselves, our health, and our waistlines from now until January 2nd. I'd like to recognize here that there are other wonderful holidays in December -- Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Yule, Festivus -- and I'll happily weigh in on any questions you have regarding the food traditions of those holidays. But here in the United States, at least, the cultural juggernaut is Christmas. Whatever your faith, or lack thereof, Christmas is the reason there are going to be candy canes handed out a the dry cleaners, cookies in the break room, and enough eggnog to float eight tiny reindeer offered to you this coming month. Hence the title of this piece.

How to deal? I've covered this before, but A) there are always newbies, and B) even the old-timers can use a reminder. Anyway, if yearly repetition of holiday themes is good enough for print magazines, why shouldn't I do it to? A girl's got to write about something, you know. I'll cover this in more than one post, but the first, the most important rule is this:

CHOOSE YOUR INDULGENCES.

Be brutally honest with yourself about whether you can have a seasonal Indulgence or two at all, and not get knocked totally off-course. As I wrote over the summer, for too many people, a "Oh, heck, just this once, it's a holiday" Indulgence turns into months or years of sinking back into carb addiction. This way lie monsters, beware.

But if you do decide you can have an Indulgence or two, be very conscious about what they are, when they are, and how much you are going to eat. It is one thing to decide that on Christmas Day you will allow yourself one of each variety of your mom's homemade Christmas cookies. It is another thing entirely to decide "It's the holiday season!" and eat every cookie that comes your way, homemade or junk from the convenience store, for the next month.

Never, ever, ever waste an Indulgence on anything that is not exactly what you want. Do not eat milk chocolate if you prefer dark. Better to eat a few bites of superb imported chocolate than a stocking's worth of cheap foil-wrapped novelties. Don't eat gingerbread men if you prefer shortbread. Think now, long and hard, about what your one or two very favorite holiday treats are, and resolve to have those, and only those -- and plan when, and in what quantity, you will eat them.

If you give in to the constant barrage of "But it's the holidays!" I guarantee you, you will regret it.