Eating your way through Christmas ~ December 16, 1993

David Heiller

The scale in the corner of our friends’ house stood there like the dashboard of a 1958 Studebaker, big and solid with a face that wouldn’t give away a good poker hand.

I stepped on it Sunday night, and the needle rose like the speedometer of a hot rod Lincoln to 220. I stepped off, then on again. 220.

The Beast

“Is this a good scale?” I asked Kevin, trying to keep a calm voice.

“Yeah, if anything, it’s a little light,” he said. Gee thanks, Kevin.

I’ve been avoiding scales lately, like a sinner avoids a church. It’s Christmas, and if Christmas means anything, it means gaining weight.

I had dropped 10 pounds off my 220 pound body over the past three months. In fact, the scale even hit 206 a few times.

That may not seem like much to John Domogalla, who can drop 100 pounds just by not eating after six p.m. But to me, it was a major mid-life victory.

And now, stepping on The Scale That Doctors Recommend, I see 220 again.

Ah, Christmas.

It’s a time when people my age pat their stomachs and laugh nervously and say things like, “Υup, every year, I gain another five pounds at Christmas.”

Carolyn and I making sandbakkels. 
These delights are best when made with a friend, 
and when consumed by an appreciative audience.
 I always had that with David!

It’s a time when wives get together and make sandbakkles, which are sugar and butter mixed together with a little flour thrown in to give it a brown color. The wives are expected to make cookies like this, and the husbands are expected to eat them and a good husband always lives up to his expectations.

It gets better. Chocolate cookies from my Grandma Schnίck’s recipe. I have to eat those, otherwise Grandma will get mad up in that Great Kitchen in the Sky.

Sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles. The kids help make those, so I have to eat them or I’ll disappoint my little children and scar them for life.

Russian tea cakes. Have to eat them to be politically correct.

Hazel Serritslev’s peppernuts. Grab a handful; shove them in your mouth like a squirrel with sunflower seeds. Take a big swig of milk, swish it all around, and start chewing. Danish heaven.

Peanut kisses. They go great with a cup of coffee in the car on the way to work.

Don't forget the annual cookie decorating
 jamboree with the nieces and nephew!

And that’s just the cookies. There’s staff dinners and suppers, church potlucks and parties, and dining out at your local restaurant.

And don’t forget the bowl of mixed nuts on the counter. Filberts, English walnuts, pecans, almonds, and (last, but not least), Brazil nuts. Boy, are they fun to crack. Once you crack them, it’s a shame not to eat them.

I could go on, but you get the mid-drift. The scariest part is that Christmas is still nine days away. And New Year’s comes after that. Look out for the food that’s coming. It will hit you like a midnight freight train.

Thank goodness we have a more generous scale than our friends’. It’s digital. The numbers can’t seem to make up their mind. Cindy steps on it gingerly, like a cat sneaking up on a mouse, and it gives a kind reading. It’s amazing how that can make a woman smile. I clomp on it in the morning, half-asleep with a stiff back, and it gives a blunter answer.

It said 214 Monday morning. I stepped off, then on again. That sometimes shakes a couple pounds loose. 214.

But it wasn’t 220! Heck, that wasn’t so bad. I had lost at least six pounds overnight. And I was holding my boxer shorts in my hand. They weighed at least two pounds.

Look out peppernuts, here I come.