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I
know I’m too big to sit on Santa’s lap and entirely too old to ask
for some gift or another. Still, it’d be really nice if I could make
it happen somehow. Unlike others I’ve spoken to, I wouldn’t ask for
material things. Nope, what I’d like is the ability to shed the
pounds gained during the 4th quarter of each year. It occurs to me
that we’re the only mammals on the planet that undergoes this
constant pounds on, pounds off cycle each and every year. Beginning
in September we start the annual storing of fat cycle. This usually
starts with the last holiday of summer, Labor Day. We generally pile
on the barbeque, ribs and hotdogs in preparation for the oncoming
winter days. It seems as if nature had impressed upon our bodies
that winter was on its way and we should be prepared.
The
next plate filler is Halloween. This used to be just a holiday for
kids, but has now evolved into everyone, young and old taking
advantage in order to stuff all kinds of candy into their mouths. As
we all know the Halloween season starts the day after Labor Day. The
day after Halloween is the beginning of the Thanksgiving season.
Some researchers have found that Thanksgiving started out as a pagan
holiday in which savages smeared themselves with wild honey and ran
naked through the woods in the hopes of attracting turkeys. After
having captured these turkeys, they built an altar 15 feet tall made
of corn and maize.
These
practices lead to the creation of the old song, "Jimmy cracked
corn and I don’t care." As usual, these researchers differ on
several points of this legend. First off, no one can agree on just
who ‘Jimmy’ is or just why he went about cracking corn in the first
place. Most of us have wondered just exactly what is cracked corn
and is it important that I don’t care? Am I supposed to care? Do you
care? Who cares? Obviously it takes us all about 4 weeks to dispose
of the turkey by means of turkey soup, sandwiches, turkey salad and
turkey pie. Now, the last one was just thrown in there to see if
you’re really paying attention. I guess you could have a turkey pie,
since they eat blackbirds somewhere, don’t they?
I
know I’ve had to eat crow once or twice, but that’s another story
entirely. This 4-week period having past, we enter the pageant of
Christmas with cookies, cakes, pies and everything imaginable made
out of sugar. My neighbor brought us over a 5-pound bag of peanut
brittle. Lasted about 45 minutes. What’s in that stuff anyway?
Doesn’t appear to be bad for you, and tastes so good, doesn’t it?
Seems to be peanuts and some stuff to hold it all together. Just
disappeared. You never saw anyone actually eating any of it, but
poof, it was gone. Kind of like stealth chocolate, first you
see it, and then you don’t. What seems so cruel is the fact that we
even start training our children at very early ages to think this is
all normal. This is evidenced by the lullaby telling us that, "Visions
of sugar plums danced in their heads" What exactly is a sugar
plum anyway? We’ve never gotten any, but then again, we don’t need
any either.
Knowing
that everyone is getting tired of holidays, the founding fathers put
New Years Day just a week later than Christmas. This would be the
last chance to pork up before the dreaded New Year started and the
big "D" word is embossed upon everyone’s mind for the next
8 or 9 months. If you will notice the word Diet is composed of 2
parts, die and t. This word, according to some scholars, originated
with the Druids at Stonehenge. It started out meaning, "To
die" but got mixed up over the years by some scholar who had
obviously overdosed on some ancient pie or cupcake. . The original
word more accurately describes the torture process I have to go
through to get my old bag of bones back in shape just in time for
the next session starting in September. A time for everything, a
season for all. Send comments, but no diet suggestions to www.pearyperry.com.
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