Reading that title, I realized that in these economic times, that it could be misconstrued as, “Don’t count on the Holidays to save us from this mess.”  But that was not what I meant at all.  What I don’t want to count on Holidays are calories!  Every year I turn on the news and get an earful of exactly how many calories are in the average Holiday meal, cookie plate, favorite dip, etc.  When these segments come on, I plug my ears, sing off-key loudly and run from the room.  My husband, being the nice guy that he is, comes and rescues me when the horror is over.  But now it is not only the news.  Calorie counts of Holiday indulgences are everywhere.  The Food Network, Facebook, the internet, newspapers and more.  I can’t escape it.  Why? Why must they do this?  Can’t we have a few days a year when we throw dietary caution to the wind and simply enjoy?

I know I am more sensitive to these calorie counts because of the way I was raised.  My parents went wild on the Holidays.  Cheese platters (my favorite) with eight different cheeses, three kinds of meat (prime rib, Honey Baked Ham and pulled pork), six different dips and more bread than most bakeries.  We also always had at least three types of Champagne, six wines and Port.  But the Holidays were not a happy indulgence.  My parents and then subsequently, we girls were weight obsessed.  So, during the entire Holiday meal, all we talked about was how many calories we were eating.  How much weight we were going to gain and how long we would have to work out/diet to undo the “damage” of said meal.   No wonder I spent so many years schizophrenic about food!  It not only took all the fun out of the meal, but it also created a lot of guilt.  Guilty for eating the food.  Guilty for not eating enough of the food (that my parents worked so hard to provide).  Along with the guilt came the feeling of , “I have to eat all I can now because tomorrow I must starve!”  Believe me the Man Vs. Food eating competitions have nothing on our Holiday food fests.  This was before I “learned” that NOTHING was leaving the planet and that I could eat some triple cream Brie smeared on a piece of sourdough baguette tomorrow or (Gasp!) even next month, if I so wished.   Basically, this constant calorie counting and guilt provoking talk took all the joy out of the Holidays.

Just a few years ago, I was lucky enough to cook my Mother what would be her last Thanksgiving meal.   Even with Alzheimer’s she remembered Thanksgiving and had such a smile on her face as she “helped” me cook.  I went all out, of course, because at the end, I am my parents’ daughter.  It was a small group, just me, Mother, Father, a sister, her husband and son.  My Father started the night before with the calorie counts.  I stopped him cold.  And told him that absolutely no calorie counts, fat reports or feelings of guilt could be expressed on this Thanksgiving.  He agreed, but all it took was my sister’s arrival and he was off.  Together they moaned about how fantastically delicious my hot artichoke dip was ( it is!) , but then once they swallowed, they started on how many calories must be in it and how fattening it must be…  My sister even went as far as to corner me in the kitchen later and demand to know the ingredients so she could try to calculate how many Weight watchers points per serving the dip had.  I didn’t give in.  To her demands or to the calorie counting guilt.  Instead I focused on my Mother’s happy face, the delicious food and out of this world BV Tapestry we were drinking.

My mother died just a little over a month after that Thanksgiving and I haven’t spent a Holiday with my family since she passed.  I now spend the Holidays with my husband and cats.  This last Thanksgiving the food and wine was spectacular.  And yes, I had five different kinds of cheese!  We also had double cut pork chops, fresh green beans with shallots, garlic, lemon and aged-provolone, three kinds of bread, a huge salad, cranberry sauce and a home made rustic apple tart- all just for the two of us.  We sipped champagne, paired some really nice Pinot Noir with the cheese and enjoyed a leisurely meal.  Followed of course by a heated piece of that tart.  No calories were mentioned.  I didn’t eat so much that I would burst, because, I now know I CAN eat tomorrow.

I guess my point to this entire article is we all should have a few days where we relax, enjoy food, wine and people we love completely guilt free. Just as I wrote that I realized that as long as family is involved, there may always be a modicum of guilt (Ha!), but at least it won’t come from what we are eating.  Besides, honestly, have those calorie counts ever stopped anybody, except the majorly food obsessed, from eating the Holiday meal? I don’t think so.  So why not keep the mystery?  And really, it is not what you are eating on a few Holidays that is causing a weight problem (if you have one).  It is what you are eating on the other 360 days.  To paraphrase a diet book , “Think about what you are eating when it doesn’t count, so you don’t have to think about it when it does.”  To me, Holidays count.  And the last thing I want to focus on is how many miles I will have to walk to burn off a single slice of pumpkin pie.  That is another thing, I don’t want to know that I will have to run 20 miles while carrying five pound weights to burn off a cup of stuffing.  So it is with a light heart (pun intended) that I start planning our Christmas/Hanukkah meal.  There will be some cheese, some wine and I am thinking maybe an Italian spin.  I REALLY love a good lasagna and I don’t care how many calories are in it.  I will eat, be relaxed and count my blessings. Not my calories.