byChrisWhite – 2014

They come for the lights first. Then the garlands. Then the slow, glinting disarray of tinsel flung over wooden banisters by hands that forget their own age and remember only the weight of tradition. December arrives not with frost, but with appetite. A season not of restraint, but of surrender. A festival of sanctioned indulgence, the sugar-glazed sacrament of civilization’s refusal to grow lean.

We are, all of us, celebrants of hunger. And Christmas is our altar.

No doctrine is stricter than that of holiday feasting. No congregation more devout than those gathered round the buffet. The diabetics among us, self-included, become heretics by necessity. This is the month where we cross ourselves in insulin and pray for deliverance through pecan pie. There is no commandment that forbids a man from licking the cinnamon from his fingers. There is only consequence.

I checked. No statute outlaws sugar on social media. Not even orange circus peanuts, those lurid confections born of factory lighting and nostalgia. If they cause emotional distress, the law has yet to say so.

And yet, in a nation where truth fractures beneath the weight of outrage, where every verdict is a Rorschach, even the act of feasting becomes defiance. Let others squabble over bodycams and bullet trajectories. Let them parse tomato and tomâto until the seeds rot on the vine. I will be here, in my kitchen, waging war against restraint with a spatula.

I make no oaths in December. No vows of abstinence. No trembling resolutions to eat clean and live light. I am, this time of year, a dietary agnostic. I taste freely. I believe in all cuisines. And while my pancreas whimpers in protest, I greet each carb as a pilgrim might greet relics: with reverence and reckless faith.

Twenty years diabetic. Twenty years dancing on the edge of sugar’s blade. And still I believe. Not in science, but in luck. Not in fasting, but in fudge. My endocrinologist calls it denial. I call it choosing joy over numbers. For what is life, if not the courage to eat cake and accept the consequences?

Intentions, I have them. They line up neatly beside the refrigerator magnets. Eat better. Move more. Love my body. But beside those intentions lies a slice of Emily’s pie, and between intention and indulgence lies only the fragile silence of willpower. It seldom lasts.

Insulin is not a cure. It is a truce. A way to walk the razor’s edge without falling. And so I walk. And eat. And whisper apologies to my blood.

They tell you food is emotional. That overeating masks trauma or grief. But I tell you the truth: it tastes good. That is all. A biscuit needs no psychoanalysis. A casserole asks no questions. It merely nourishes. And perhaps we are kinder, fatter, more forgiving when our bellies are full.

Why, then, should nations war? Let them dine. Let them trade missiles for macaroni. Let them sit beneath neutral trees and share spiced custards and the soft warmth of eggnog. Let the diplomats be served first. Let them chew before they speak.

Christmas demands honesty. Mammaw doesn’t live forever. Her fudge is her legacy. To refuse it in the name of caloric restraint is a crime against memory. Eat the fudge. Eat it as though it were the last piece on earth. Because one day, it will be.

Forget the evangelists of fitness. They will betray you come spring. Their promises will falter. Their blogs will go dark. But Mammaw’s fudge remains. It is written into the bones of winter. It is the gospel of dessert.

So fry the beignets. Use the lukewarm water. Blot the grease if you must, but do not apologize. Grind the Metformin into the powdered sugar if it helps. Let every bite be both pleasure and penance.

This is Christmas. Not a season, but a sacrament. A ritual of fire and flour. Of cinnamon and choice. Of indulgence not as sin, but as salvation.

May your blood hold steady. May your joy be full.

And may your plate never be empty.

Amen.