Seasonal Foods

I'm not making my weight goal this month. Such a modest goal it was, too.  In fact, with nine days to go in the month, I probably could still make it. I'd have to start by jumping off this couch, strap on the running shoes, and hit the street... But even then, I can't control what the scale says each day. I can only control my actions to manage calories out versus calories in, which over the long term will result in weight loss.

But I'm not going to hunker down and try to get to goal this month. It's Christmas, for crying out loud.  And some of the joy of Christmas comes from making, getting, exchanging, and eating the special foods of Christmas.  I am going to allow the joy into my life.  I'm going to do it in such a way as to not go crazy, so as to not have huge regrets on January third when normal life resumes, but I'm going to consciously embrace the foods of the season.

For starters, (I mean "for example" because I actually started a few days ago) I've just made a half cup of Trader Joe's Sipping Chocolate.  Yummy, though mellower than the Dominican Republic dark drinking chocolate I had the other day. My mother is a christmas cooking making dynamo.  To us, there are two special kinds:  one is a butter cookie made with almond paste, piped into circles and dusted with powdered sugar, and the other is a brown sugar cookie with a pecan half stuck on top. There were others in the past, some made faithfully for years even after the family made it clear we didn't really like them. I remember green christmas tree-shaped butter cookies, from a special cookie press. Ordinary rolled cookies cut into shapes and decorated with icing and stuff. But now these two types are what she is up to making.

My big contribution will be Julekage, a sweet yeast bread flavored with cardamon and with embedded fruit pieces.  My mother used to make it with currents and the horrible gummy fruit-derived things that go in fruit cakes, but then my sister a few years ago made an innovation (!) and substituted excellent dried cherries and cranberries for the fruit cake stuff.  (There was some controversy in the family about whether it was permissible to introduce change into our traditions, even with universal agreement that it tasted better.)  This year, I found candied whole lemons and oranges at Whole Foods, and we tried the lemon - tasty though chewy. I'm going to make one or two loaves with cut up small pieces of those for the fruit. I'm probably going to do this tonight, and I imagine one loaf will need to be eaten fresh from the oven. At least two loaves will need to hidden at my house until Christmas morning, since we actually need to eat some of it on Christmas day.

I've got the big college kid to feed for a while, and kids hanging around the house for a week, so a quick trip to Trader Joe's filled the freezer with their easy-to-prepare staples.  The big family dinners will be designed around meat, but I've got lots of vegetables for me to focus on besides.  We've recently gotten into soups - I'm mostly not making them, but the bought ones from Whole Foods and Trader Joes are quite tasty and filling. (Interestingly, I bought lobster bisque at CostCo and my little girl told me it tasted like it was full of sugar and she didn't like it. She's getting more refined and healthy preferences. Yay!)

I'm not cancelling any gym sessions, and I expect to be fairly active (though my "fitness tip" of the day in email from my gym says it takes eleven hours of wrapping presents to equal one cup of eggnog!)  I'll be going to work most days after christmas so it reduces the snacking opportunites.  So I'm aiming for holding my own on the scale and the way my clothes fit.  We'll see, but I'm hopeful.  But not obsessing.

I'll be joining the legions of people in January with renewed vows of healthy living and high hopes for achieving challenging goals in the year to come. But this year, I'll have some success to build on, and the confidence that comes with that.