It Comes But Once a Year

  I’ve started putting on weight; storing fat to live off during my expected hibernation through winter. Only one part of that sentence isn’t true. I actually have been storing up fat.
  With Thanksgiving just a few days away, the (un)official start of cookie baking season has begun. For the next month I’ll go out of my mind baking all kinds of sweets, knowing that for the most part, I’ll be the one eating most of them. Sure, I give a lot away, but I probably make twice as many as I get rid of. “Maybe my cousins already went through the two dozen I gave them half a week ago. I’d better make more.”
  It can get a little confusing remembering where to put all the cookies I make. I’m sure I’ll need to give my roommate a refresher course soon: peanut butter balls go in the fridge, world’s best cookies and peanut blossoms go in the freezer, and the brownies stay out on the counter. I don’t see how this is difficult. Since they’re all made and in their proper place, it’s now just making sure he puts everything back, which, for some reason, is harder than it should be for a thirty year old man.
  Last winter, I offered some cookies to a friend. She declined, saying that she was trying to not put on a lot of weight over the holidays. Bad move. I like to think of the last few weeks of November and all of December as a lost cause. I know I’m going to put on weight and probably give myself diabetes, but I’ll worry about all that stuff in January. Right now, there’s a piece of pie crying out to crammed into my mouth.
  I wasn’t kidding when I said I plan to live off my fat; it’s what I did last winter. Starting last January I lost 15 pounds by eating practically nothing and running the heck out of my legs. Sure, I could moderate my diet over the next month. There’s no reason I have to over eat, but to me it’s just one of the joys of the holidays. It’s like why we gorge ourselves on meat around the 4th of July; it just feels right. And while I only get the meat sweats once a year, I can be buzzed on sugar for the next five weeks straight.
  If the sweets weren’t around I know I wouldn’t be craving it. But when it's sitting there, calling out to me, I can't help but get fat. I like to bake, even when it’s only for my benefit. And it’s why they make (non-sweat) pants with an adjustable waist, so we can all relax a bit around the holidays and, oh what the heck, I’ll have just one more cookie.