December 21st marks it on the calendar, but we all know that starting in October, life state-side is pretty much about consumption. We stop “eating to live” (or even “living to eat,” for that matter) and start “existing to binge.” How many bite sized Snickers bars did you inhale the week before Halloween simply because they were sitting around your office? How many third helpings of turkey day fixings did you shovel down your gullet long after your belly was full? And now Christmas-time is here. You’re being pulled in a hundred different directions. Chocolates are flying at your face from all angles. Your “friends” keep trying to force-feed you cake and you’ve got so much shopping to do, so many social events to attend that there’s absolutely no way you can get to the gym. Meanwhile, on every street corner you hear, not silver bells, but the unmistakable swish of wool-clad thighs rubbing against each other like drunken co-workers at an office Christmas party. And you’ve still got a full week to go before New Year’s eve.
The good news is that we don’t actually gain as much weight as we think during this period. According to some recently published studies, and Doctor Memet “Oprah’s Bitch” Oz, the average American only gains about one pound during the holiday season. The bad news is: that’s just the average. Some of us gain more. The still worse news is that whatever the final number, we tend not to lose any of it after the season comes to a close.
It hasn’t always been this way for us humans: we used to winter like bears. Our primitive ancestors, according to psychiatrist Peter Whybrow, and science writer Robert Bahr, authors of The Hibernation Response, survived winter by retreating to caves, huddling for warmth, and allowing their metabolisms to drop to a near standstill as they drew on ample stored body fat in order to survive the big chill. They did this to pass the time and skip over the dark months when there was no food to be found. It doesn’t sound like such a bad deal, right? You'd get three solid months off of work. You’d have to spend the time stone-cold sober stuck in a tiny room with your entire immediate family, but you could make it through the holidays without once needing to set physical foot in a department store or virtually stroll the online catacombs of Amazon.com.
There’d also be no pie. No ladles of thick turkey gravy over petite pois and pearl onions. No latkes with applesauce. No sweet potato casserole, no salty collards cold-boiled with fat back and pickle juice. Not a single scoop of my mother’s now-famous Christmas trifle, with its multiple layers of custard and whipped cream and liquor soaked, raspberry drenched sponge. NO BACARDI RUM CAKE. Holy Mary mother of Chanukah! Maybe this is why we humans have flipped our animal instinct switch to the off position: we wouldn’t want to miss out on the holiday deliciousness!
Or maybe it’s all about the bottom line. If we don’t sleep, we can work sixty-hour weeks and afford to buy bigger, better presents for our spoiled children. So what if they’re morbidly obese from machine-made chicken products and the effects of PlayStation-induced torpor. Who cares that they’re being raised by strangers? It doesn’t matter as long as the latest Japanese-talking-cyber-fuzzy is waiting for them under the [insert ethnically correct winter holiday symbol here].
I'll buy that the human species has legitimately evolved beyond the need to sleep all season long, but I refuse to believe that in our never-ending quest to multi-task, manage time and make the most of our short lives on this great green marble, we've become so efficient as to operate above natural law. We are still slaves to biology. When the sun goes down in late September, our ancient lizard eye makes with the melatonin production and we get extra sleepy. However, we don’t get any extra sleep, so we become what the good doctors Whybrow and Bahr like to call, “Walking hibernators.” We get irritable--how pleasant can I be during an 8PM kickboxing class when my body is demanding I go home and pass out?; we get sad--you say it's "the hap-happiest time of the year" but the boy I fell for just stuck his fist through my heart and all around me animals are being abused; we get frustrated--how am I supposed to balance my biological needs with the ever-increasing demands of modern life?
There was a time, not so long ago, when December felt like the longest month of the year; when my brother and gleefully alternated days on the advent calendar, and my parents had to pop a Roofie in my juice to get me to sleep on Christmas eve. Back then, I did nothing on break but watch movies, sleep, and when I got a little older smoke pot, watch movies and sleep. This was when it actually snowed in December and I didn’t have to say “Happy Holidays” for fear of being sued by some jerk-off in sore need of a hobby.
I suppose the holidays have evolved too, or perhaps I’m just getting old. These days, I slog through every article in every health magazine about how to avoid the winter bulge/blues. Some days, I feel like shooting my face off, but most of the time, it all just makes me want to run longer distances and knock bitches out. I'm an exemplary human specimen though. I kid. But seriously, when are people going to get wise and realize that resistence is not only futile, it's also lame. What is so terrifying about the idea of putting on a pound or two, and so paralyzing about the concept of having to work it off ? Why do we spend so much time beating ourselves up over the need to slow down and so little time developing healthy ways of revving up again when the time is right? I’m not trying to rationalize sleeping for 14 hours at a stretch, nor am I instructing you to skip regular workouts (come on, ME?!?) and abuse intoxicants to numb the stinging pain of loneliness one often feels around this time of year (maybe just a little taste). It's Christmas and what happens on Christmas doesn't fucking count! I'm saying, if the choice is between eating another Tollhouse cookie or hurling yourself off a bridge, PLEASE go with the cookie.
In another couple of months, the rains will come, and after the rains, a great thaw. The hills will once more bloom fresh with honeysuckle and we will wake from our sad, chubby slumber to wander free eating berries and drinking chilly Sauvignon Blancs with raw oysters and ceviche. It might take an extra 20 minutes on the Precor to get back into beach-going shape, but you’ll be ready for anything after a sorely needed, and well deserved, hibernation. And in fifty years, when we’re all androids with 18 inch waists, the need for sleep will be but a foggy memory of times gone by. We’ll exterminate all the bears for breathing too much of our oxygen and find new, uncharted ecosystems to destroy with gusto. Until then, eat, drink and be merry. Oh, and Happy Holidays--scratch that--MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS--to all.
