Sugar Regret and Rationalization

Sugar Regret or Sugar Rationalization? It’s all in the way you look at it.

Okay, I’m still recuperating from my New Year’s Eve Christmas cookie/candy clean-up tradition.  I awoke January 1, 2012 with a sugar hangover — a Pepto Bismol nightmare — not the visions of dancing sugar plums I’d aspired and clung to.

You may be wondering — why do I insist on consuming so much junk food every December 31st?

  • Because I wants it. I needs it.  I likes sugar and chocolate, My Precious.
  • And, doggone it, I worked hard to make those Christmas delicacies.
  • Wasting is wrong.  My dad said so.  There are starving children in Bangladesh — and my mom taught me that cream cheese won’t keep well in the mail, so we can’t mail homemade Oreos to them.
  • And, there’s usually a positive outcome.  For instance, snacking now seems disdainful; hence, keeping my New Year’s resolution of moderation has been easy — at least for the first day or two.
  • Celery and carrots now makes me salivate.
  • Starting the new year with a clean fridge and a clean slate — no problem. My husband and I just pack the leftover leftover cookies and candy and give them to someone else.  They thank us for our generosity.  We smile, inwardly congratulating ourselves for our superhuman willpower, and wait at least a week before we ask if they have any snacks they don’t want.

Don’t knock our New Year’s Eve Christmas cookie/candy clean-up tradition until you try it.  And, by the way, can we stop by your house?  We have some Christmas treats to give you.

G-bye 2012

My idea of a New Year’s Eve party.

It’s New Year’s Eve and like Alicia Keys, this girl is on fi-ya.  Luckily the hot flashes don’t last long.  I know — you were hoping for something more glamorous, but I’m lame at New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Since mid-life, fuzzy footies, a warm blanket and the television remote have replaced high heels, dancing, and sparkling beverages in my New Year’s tradition.  My idea of partying looks more like “Fat Tuesday”. I snarf up prime rib or lobster or steak and as much of the leftover Christmas cookie and candy stash as I can.

My motivation?  Umm — to lessen the caloric temptations for the world in the following year. It’s a sacrifice, but someone’s gotta do it. Also, by making my January 1st weigh-in high, the weigh scale numbers have nowhere to go but down. This raises the bar for weight loss potential.  It’s a win-win!

And, we go to bed early, so sugar plums can dance in our heads one last time before the stuffy New Year’s resolutions kick them out.

Fan your “on fi-ya” self and have a cookie or three this New Year’s Eve!  Consider it your end-of-the-year moral obligation.