Christmas is not as much about opening our presents as opening our hearts. – Janice Maeditere

One of the best things about Christmas is sitting down to eat. I love the theatre and anticipation involved in the bringing of a big turkey or roast from the oven to the table. I delight in all preparations – studying the recipes, shopping for ingredients, down to preparing the midday snacks that keep us all going until dinnertime (after all – there’s always one vital ingredient missing in pre-packaged food – the love that only you can stir in!) I carefully work out all the intricate details and scheduling that lead up to us all being able to sit comfortably around a table, enjoying the fruits of our labour together.

What is true for presents, shopping, even alcohol during this and all seasons (i.e. we massively over-indulge!) is also true for food. How did celebrating the essence of the season become associated unmitigated and unenlightened gluttony? There’s nothing wrong, as noted in past posts, with a drink, a couple – or eating joyously (and plentifully) during this or any holiday season. But when it is impossible to relax, or even interact without the thought of food or drink, something is terribly wrong. We need to find other ways of enjoying a drink or a meal and enjoying life without them.

The remedy is restoring the balance between fasting and feasting. Let the expensive vintages flow, pile those desserts and side dishes high, and get that turkey in the oven; hands down – Christmas is definitely worth celebrating, but it doesn’t need to be preceded and followed by weeks of the same! You know as well as I do – the ancitipation of the festivities is the sweetest gift; that turkey will be all the tastier if the days beforehand have been filled with lighter and simpler fare.

This holiday season, I challenge you to reconsider the honourable and ancient tradition of the fast. This was what the period leading up to Christmas used to be about: we did without things in order to learn what is truly essential and to appreciate them more when we enjoyed them again. The feast is far sweeter when it follows the simplicity and solitude of a safe and honourable fast.

(Although I haven’t fasted at every holiday past, I have a few times in recent years and will again safely this year; it’s extremely liberating in addition to keeping the holidays in check while all else around me is quite chaotic!)

Christmas has its critics and, if we were honest, I’m sure each one of us has, at some time, wished we could quietly quit the planet and come back when it is over. On the other hand, at what other time of year can we turn our minds to the sheer joy of feasting? The sharing of fine food and wines with famiy and friends is a deeply ingrained human (as well as religious) activity, without which our lives would surely be diminished. – Delia Smith

Stephanie

xoxo