Oh Come All Ye Fruitcakes

As you read this I am on my way back to Rehoboth from my very first Olivia cruise – a week in the Caribbean.

But I hardly needed the outsized (bad choice of words) eating/drinking fest that cruises encourage. This holiday season took the cake (that which wasn’t in my mouth) for the most calorie-laden, liquor guzzling, reflux-inducing stretch of bad gustatory behavior I have ever been a party to. Or to a party. Dozens of them.

I’m not complaining. Rehoboth is such a geographically small spot and there are so many community events it’s possible to enjoy several in a day. Don we now our big apparel.
In our house, the December bloat period started with Hanukkah Matzoh Balls and potato latkes. Fast away the old gas passes, fa la la la la, la la la la. On Thanksgiving weekend we bought a recumbent exercise bike, vowing to start our regimen immediately to keep pace with Christmas cookies.

The first thing Bonnie did after plugging the thing into the wall was trip over it, breaking two toes. Exercise out, comfort food in. As for me, I view exercise like drinking – not something to be done alone. Bring on the figgy pudding.

So there were cocktail parties, wine tastings and Christmas dinners. See the grazing fool before us Fa la la etc. And of all the wretched holiday excess I subjected myself to this season, a pair of events, like my thighs, loom large.

One Sunday we brunched at a friends’ home with Mimosas at noon, Mimosas and entrees at 3:30, and more Mimosas well into the evening. I’m amazed to report no hangover at all from the 8-hour champagne binge. I did however have a raging case of Acid Reflux from the f-ing orange juice. It’s a sad commentary about aging.

A second memorable holiday event was the Apple Pie Thrown Down baking contest. At a party of about 25 people, four contestants took the challenge. I was a judge. The authorities knew a carbohydrate professional when they saw one.

Three out of four bakers had great credentials, but the fourth bragged she hadn’t baked a pie in two decades (would that be humble pie?). Of course, it was a blind taste test. Wine withstanding, some judges were blinder than others.

To universal shock and awe, the winner was the person who had not had her paws in pie dough since 1988 and whose culinary repertoire consists of assembling field greens. Twenty five people with mouths full of pie suggested a vast right wing conspiracy.

After pie throwing came New Years’ Eve (O’er the fields we go, eating all the way) and more gluttony. Should old intentions be forgot and never brought to mind? Just how many Tums can a person take without calcifying? 10? 9? 8? 7?

Happy New Year! Let’s drink a cup of Maalox please and sing of Auld Lang Syne.

Bonnie and I resolved just about the same thing everyone else in town resolved: back to
sensible food and drink consumption. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. We hope.
Our vow was strengthened last week as we left an appointment and waited for the elevator. Soon, the wide doors opened to reveal several people already aboard. We stepped in.
As the doors closed, a booming recorded voice warned: “The elevator is now full.”
Now THAT was humiliating.

So its back to the stationery bike and lean cuisine. Of course, here comes Valentine’s Day, followed by our local Chinese New Year buffet, then the Rehoboth Chocolate Festival and let’s face it, I should really have my jaw wired shut. The only Throw Down I should enter is if it’s my fork.

The season of excess is over. Thumpety Thump Thump o’er the bills we go.