A Feast One Too Many?

Excuse me if I happen to interrupt you during your genuinely happiness-fulfilling feast of generously buttered turkey sandwiches and a plateful of nibbles which, rather frankly, nobody with an appetite as large as The Jolly Green Giant can resist, but I have quite a few things to say regarding the recent festivities and emotionally thrilling feelings surrounding Christmas, which has over the years become more renowned for the continuous servings of creamy iced chocolate logs and flavoursome pâtés being served at the high-class parties of the social season than the extravagantly decorated house adorned with plump-sized Santa lights and ridiculous ornaments which would make domestic queen Martha Stewart squirm uncomfortably in her shoes.

Yes, who could have the widely coveted power of denying the oh-too-honest fact that food plays such a prestigious role in almost everything we do at Christmas? Or, if you wish to search deeper beyond the obvious surface, neatly presented canapés and cakes iced to an inch of their shelf life (so it applies to money-wasting, cheaply-flavoured shop-bought cakes) are present in every season, holiday and event which goes around, though I won't go into shockingly great detail in relation to marzipan-topped Simnel fruit cakes and pink-bowed boxes of indulgent chocolate hearts on Valentine's Day because this current holiday - cracker-popping, TV-snoozing Christmas, if you fancy hearing a different description for the most entertaining and relaxing time of the year - is today's topic of this food-themed entry, so read on if the idea of being engrossed in being stuffed more heavily than a manufactured teddy bear grabs your wild-eyed attention.

Since Christmas Day shook me out of a restful slumber on a pitch black and damper-than-my-just-washed-hair three days ago, a luxurious feast featuring traditional favourites such as a succulent turkey - which was covered extensively in streaky slices of salty bacon during its near six-hour venture in the tightly-packed oven - and roasted vegetables took centre stage and was the beauty of our carnivore-like eyes during an once-a-year meal which has not only been erased from my memories but my heaving stomach, which has still taken on the ugly appearance of being as bloated as a balloon. That's Christmas for the majority of people, is it?

Scooping up every honey-glazed parsnip on the plate and finishing off a roasted onion which nobody else could dare to place inside their squeezed-shut mouths has finally caught up with me, dragging me along a deserted lane where the thought of making room for yet another roast potato brings a powerful wave of nausea upon myself - from today, all desires of tucking into an afternoon slice of my homemade fruit cake have but vanished like my typically disappearing ideas for my next Amazon No.1 bestseller book, which has compelled me to uncover an inner piece of courage to force myself to avoid my recently-created habits (those strongly-flavoured tins of Twiglets and bags upon bags of not-as-healthy-as-I-thought plain Doritos are the devil's snacks, so I've come to realize) like a non-existent plague unless lying around on sofa with an aching stomach is my idea of having a great time. As anybody fluent in the sharp-as-a-needle language of bitterly strong (though not as much as my dad's favourite beer) sarcasm would know, I've clearly expressed my boredom of gorging myself to the verge of spending an hour inside a bathroom without an open window because, after a day or two of letting your guard seek lower than your snobby-nosed taste in late-night car-crash TV, it just is not worth the hassle of sneaking a Lindt truffle heart from the cupboard if the near future only offers cocoa-scented burps and difficulty in squeezing into a slim-fitting pair of jeans, is it?

In all honesty, three days of pure food-related bliss and snatching a chunkier-than-allowed slice of turkey when my mum is placing her gaze upon the litter tray-destructing kittens could have been worse, right? Unlike a lot of people who simply don't know when to bring the Ritz-flavoured party to a halt and complain more passionately than my teenage tendencies as soon as January - and the often disappointing array of nutrient-lacking diets - arrives, sending the Christmas tree back into the stone-cold garage for another eleven months, I've plucked up the courage to ward off any wishes to stick my head into a bag of crisps in place for protein-rich nuts and vitamin-heavy clementines, a fruit which is often thrown away in a sad-looking box towards the end of the twelve days of chocolate-feasting Christmas. Oh, it will certainly take more than a peanut-featuring lunch to set me back on track in relation to my snacking habits, which still vividly remember the secret visits into the dining room in search of the stashed chocolate coins - until the hefty load of milk chocolate Santas and bars of luxuriant dark chocolate vanish into the winter-cool air, I still have a long while to go before I can proudly declare myself as chocolate-free.

All of us, whether we like it or not, have weak faults within our characters and mine affirms the home truth that the sight of well-made chocolate (preferably Swiss, if possible - one thing for sure is that I will never ever pick up a Cadbury's chocolate bar in the whole of my Lindt-loving life) provokes my legs to wobble like strawberry jelly, even more so when bags of coins are hidden inside my stocking on Christmas morning!

Besides, I'm slowly beginning to return to Planet Earth as the head-spinning excitement surrounding Christmas settles down, so the once urgent need to pile myself high with chilli-dipped crisps and warm mince pies is gradually diminishing into a more important desire to focus on anything else except the alluring subject of food. Of course, I enjoy everything which goes into making Christmas absolutely special - meaty turkey legs included - but the whole point of celebrating it once a year is in order to appreciate the joy while it lasts. At this rate, I will be all but giving up any hopes of baking a heavily frosted chocolate cake for my birthday in several weeks' time!

And, if I must say it, talking about turkey and one too many chocolate coins is getting me in the mood to undertake a search within the kitchen!