Stuffing Stockings and Pounding Wieners

I give up. I am officially throwing the towel in. I simply cannot eat this much any longer. Something may give out, perhaps I will bust a gut or something of that nature. Every day, it's brunch this, dinner that, or someone, somewhere, has made a desserty-sweet thing that makes its way into my life and I finish it off to keep it from "going bad." I mean, what is a person supposed to do when an entire batch of sugar cookie dough is prepared and then left in the refrigerator, cleverly wrapped in an innocuous-looking bundle of waxed paper, right there beside the butter, gazing up at you, blinking, pleading.... It's awful. And delightful. I even caved at an "authentic" Moravian Tavern at Historic Old Salem in Winston Salem on Tuesday, where the waiter casually offered to stuff my stocking. Blushing, I declined. I tried his wiener schnitzel instead--quite nice, really, all buttery and capery. Actually it was pork, but when he said it was pounded, pounded thin, I once again found myself powerless to the intoxicating world of overindulgence. And then he wiped his hands on his hand-woven knickers and disappeared to fetch me another cold Spaten.

I guess I didn't eat when I lived in Hawaii. My memories of food tend to be of me standing in my little kitchen, hovering over the sink in a bikini, attempting to use neither plate nor utensil, throwing just enough food down my gullet to keep me going until the next transition to either ocean or yoga or work or hike or lovely sweet blessed sleep. Occasionally I would prepare a meal in the evening and sit in candlelight and eat, but then too I would finish in a frightfully short period of time. It's just no fun to eat alone, especially with no tv. The framed picture of a fish over my kitchen sink provided good company, I guess, the whole 2 minutes it took to swallow and rinse my fingers.

But this mainland holiday stuff is out of hand. I used to read all those (what I thought were) dumb articles about How To Keep The Holiday Pounds Off, or Eating For Success Over Christmas, and thought, what the hell? Just don't eat so much at all your office parties and family meals. But now I know better. It is a biologic impossibility to gain anything less than 7.3 pounds from the last Thursday in November until at least December 28th. It is cruel and barbaric and absolutely undeniable.

I know what some of you are thinking: ha ha. And maybe you are right, it's high time I understood what it's llike to feel powerless in the stark, cold light beaming out of the refrigerator when your sister and niece have fallen into a slumber and you feel the need to get out of bed and check to see if the cookie dough needs to be re-wrapped to prevent those crusty little edges from forming (it just ruins the texture).
Who cares, really? I will soon enough be dancing like a freak for two nights of Panic shows in Denver and then hurling myself down snowy slopes I can barely walk down. It's all about acceptance, right? I think the ghost of Christmas has been moaning, Give in...give in....

And stockings really are the best part of Christmas.