Seasons Eatings

The holiday gauntlet has begun!

I like to celebrate with food. Food makes all things better for me, if I’m being honest. It’s comforting when I’m down and icing when I’m up. 

I don’t know if the biological is so intertwined with the cultural that it would be dumb to try and separate them out, but I want to understand all these things! Is it just that my meat sack is programmed to want to store as much fat as possible, and so when presented with many divergent reasons to eat, I am inclined to lean into them? Or was it more that, as an American, I was raised to experience holidays with food. That when I think of Independence Day, it conjures vivid imagery of hot dogs and burgers on a grill, birthdays are my mother’s carrot cake and ice cream, Easter is chocolate, Christmas is my wife’s eggs benedict and my gigantic roast prime rib.

I have now done every version of every holiday. In the pre-me that is me-now era I would drink a quart of eggnog at a go, eat to the point of true euphoria, and not pay attention whatsoever to any possible harm this might have caused my body. The other end of this extreme has been rigorously dieting through the holidays, skinless turkey breast only, lots of water, and trying to spend as much time away from my family and friends who all seemed to be able to celebrate with food, and not kill themselves in the process.

The last few years, I have tried something different. I have tried to become on at least speaking terms with moderation.

“Hello Moderation, my name is Ethan Suplee…” 

Moderation is the incredibly cool and intolerably aloof type who flits around the party and seems to know everyone very well, and though we’ve been introduced many times, always looks at me like it’s the first.

“Tell me your name again?”

“Ethan, we met last week at my wife’s office party. And two weeks ago, at the movies. Last month at my daughter’s birthday dinner?”

Feigning politeness, Moderation gives me a condescendingly weak handshake, and moves off quickly to grace the other party goers with its effortless presence.

Moderation is a bitch.

I don’t know if we’ll ever be close, I don’t even know if my desire to be close is totally rational. I think it’s probably about as sane as wanting to be “normal,” Normal won’t even shake my hand.

In knowing that when I sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, if I’m not on a turkey-breast-only-diet, I will probably go to bed that night with some sense of regret, my foremost mission has become surviving the “season” with as little inflicted damage as possible.

I cannot do that by spending the entire season off the rails. I cannot attend every party, every dinner, every get together, go to bed feeling guilty, and not do some serious damage to myself. And in all honesty, there are tiers to the level of guilt I’m willing to experience. I cannot eat myself silly and hit the ground running the next day. It is possible for me to go into an amnesia induced blackout, wake up January 1st with a ton more work to do, very low morale, and feeling like total garbage, and to avoid that I will fight that with everything I’ve got. 

I am allowed to have Thanksgiving dinner. This is the opening salvo in the holiday battle for me. Can I have Thanksgiving dinner and not make myself sick? Can I taste, or even have small portions of all the wonderful dishes, and not feel like I have to lay on the couch for the rest of the night? For some years this was not possible, I would fold and have seconds, thirds, then move in on the desert table. I would feel sick and then nurse myself well for a few days by grazing on leftovers. The hard line I draw now, is no seconds, and I can’t game this by obnoxiously overloading my plate. One plate, not obscenely overflowing, followed by a small serving of desert. The trick for me has been having something to do after the meal. Where I would normally sit around the table for hours, staring at the would-be seconds and thirds, I have to physically take myself away from the food. I have to do something else. My wife likes to go on a walk after dinner and this has been really useful for me. 

Once that meal is over, it’s OVER. That holiday is done, I don’t mess with leftovers. That’s my hard line. 

I set very strict boundaries for myself, knowing that if I break them, the wheels will likely fall off.

There is some celebration with and through food, but more and more I am trying to move away from this as a tradition, trying to do things to celebrate, that I enjoy, which have nothing to do with food. 

I will greet Moderation at the next ugly sweater party with a firm handshake.