There’s STILL turkey and stuffing and gravy in the fridge, and I’ve gained five pounds in the last week. I had to ask the kids to please put the cookies and candies back in the snack cupboard when they’re done, because if they leave them out it’s simply way too easy to have “just one”, every time I walk past.

I walk past a lot.

And hey, while I’m here and talking about food, there’s two things I’ve wanted to get off my chest for a long time…

1. WHY do people joke about how awful Christmas fruit cake is? I have never understood this – I LOVE Christmas fruit cake! Are you kidding? Don’t use it as a doorstop or boat anchor – send it to me! We’ll happily make this a home for fruit cakes! Erm, wait, that doesn’t sound quite right somehow.

2. Shortbread is sacred. Shortbread shall be made with real butter, and never that edible oil crap. Shortbread should be firm and not crumbly, but melt in your mouth. Shortbread should not require the jaw strength of a rottweiler to eat it. And whoever made lavender shortbread for the cookie exchange should be shot. Shot, I say! WTF were you thinking? Food should NEVER smell or taste like the stuff my mother puts in her underwear drawer. Blech… I have now officially found the first food that I absolutely can’t stand. But it hardly counts since it’s got actual friggin’ lavender seeds in it!

Christmas this year was very quiet, very simple, with no guests except for Jan’s boy (and he hardly qualifies as a guest anymore), but I still made far more food than we could have ever eaten in a day, never mind in one sitting. But that’s a big part of Christmas for me – it’s just not the same unless the table is fairly groaning under the load.

I know there are people who have little or nothing, and this is not to minimize that in any way. But I am happiest on holidays when I’m making a huge meal for my family.

It has something to do with abundance. For 360-odd days of each year, we live quite modestly. Even if we get a rare opportunity to live what is by our standards large, we just don’t buy unnecessary things of any significant value any other time of the year. We’re quite content and grateful every time we can pay bills without sweating too much.

But Christmas has become the one time when we seem to allow ourselves to say “screw it” to responsibility (within reason), blow off financial concerns and insecurities, and buy things that we want instead of just what we need. A table full of home-cooked food that will leave us groaning and eating leftovers for a week is part of that. Part of allowing ourselves to accept abundance, if only for a little while.

Slowly, ever so slowly, that part of Christmas comes easier and lasts longer each year.

Ach. I’m babbling and not making any sense. It must be the brandy chocolates. I hope that 2008 is a year of abundance for you and those you love. I’m sure you’ll handle it far more graciously and logically than I do.

I’m all Christmas music-ed out and ready for the snow to melt and spring to be here now, but I could listen to and watch Trace Bundy play this in June, and still love it.