"Healthy" Holidays

For those of us recovering from eating disorders, and, certainly, for those who've yet to start, holidays are like sweets-spitting dragons to be battled back, if not finally slain. It's primarily the Big Two that give us trouble - Thanksgiving and Christmas, or another holiday around the same time of year. In late November, tables shakily support the rewards of our self-congratulatory thanks, and, throughout much of December, they groan, Samson-like, beneath the weight of good cheer. These are occasions celebrated less with food than with FOOOOOD. The "overeater" and undereater alike struggle, but struggle in different ways.

It's a shame, really. Holidays tend to be built around the idea of friendship, family, and community. And friends, family, and communities like to eat. Food and drink are very basic, shareable resources (though, unfortunately, not always shared), and, sometimes, food and drink alone are enough to put people in a room together. My parents, still freshly divorced, now interact only on special occasions, and, while it's not just because of the food, the food helps. Their first real, extended post-divorcealyptic meeting came while visiting their anorexic son (that's me) at an eating disorder center. It was oddly fun.

On Thanksgiving, I didn't do so well. I went, along with the rest of the family, to my sister's; but I ate only a slight piece of the nutty coffee cake I purchased at the last minute, and I counted that as a supplement toward my meal plan. But I also took home some turkey (one of my "safe" foods), and, using it and other items, I ultimately met my meal plan for the day. Yet, it was and is clear that, despite my greater health, I still struggle. Not just with the food itself, but with the time of day at which I consume it and the amount of control I have over it.

Which brings me to Christmas. As I write this, it's 8:06 a.m. on December 25, and I am due at my sister's at 1:00 for Christmas lunch. On the advice of caring support professionals, I asked my mother to make her Christmas candies this year, something she hasn't done for the last couple. I can remember, years ago, looking forward to pies, cakes, rolls, macaroni and cheese, my mother's excellent sausage balls, her knee-weakening fudge, and her "buckeyes" - those chocolate-covered peanut-butter balls resembling the nuts of the buckeye tree.

Part of the bargain is that I have to eat them. And I shall. With relish. And I'll eat other things, too. 1:00 is a time I can work with, and I'm sure that the fare will include something safe enough for me to consume without Catholic guilt. I may not eat sausage balls, but I'll eat enough to substantially contribute to my meal plan for the day and to perhaps make me feel a bit normal this Christmas.

So, "healthy" holidays to all. To all, a good bite.