You might think my headline for this column is a little drastic for a New Year’s resolution, but during the Thanksgiving/Christmas stuff-a-thon, I always feel compelled to eat as much as I can of everything I like, especially since it only makes an appearance on my plate or in my cup once a year.
For example, take eggnog. It could be sold by Dr. Kervorkian as instant artery-blocking fluid, guaranteed to put the “throm” in your “bosis.”
Life insurance salesmen include it in their list of questions about personal habits, right after the one about skydiving. And you don’t really think of it as an after-game thirst quencher.
But I like eggnog once a year at Christmas. And if I stumble across a good batch, I will drink half a punch bowl. And then I wake up the next day looking like a cross between Orson Welles and the Goodyear blimp.
But the holidays are like that. Fudge, divinity, cookies, pies and cakes abound everywhere I go, and I feel obliged out of common courtesy to sample them all. (My mother taught me good manners.)
Except for fruit cake. What is fruit cake? Do people really eat it? I don’t think so. I think there is only one fruit cake, and it has been passed around between families for decades.
That’s why it has that ancient, pre-historic glazed look. It was probably the joke gift at a Christmas party in 1827. And ever since, people have been waiting for the first victim to take a bite.
My advice: “Just say no.”
Well, anyway, food (or staying away from it) is always the most popular New Year’s resolution. But I came up with some others that Lake Highlanders should consider. I thought I would pass along these resolutions as food for thought, since that’s the only food I’ll be having for a while.
- Next Christmas, get your neighbors to put up more Christmas lights and decorations outside, causing a traffic jam from gawkers, and set up tables in the front yards to sell candy, raffle tickets, poinsettias, wrapping paper, caramel corn, coupon books, encyclopedias, used cars and Herbal Life for the benefit of Indian Guides, Indian Princesses, schools, soccer teams, cheerleaders or any other activity our children are involved in.
- Pay someone else to put your Christmas tree in the tree stand. Your family will no longer consider you dangerous with sharp ornaments, and the Christmas tree won’t look like it was mauled by a pit bull.
- If John Wiley Price and his Warriors return to the Northeast Substation, join in their demonstration across Northwest Highway. You can shout statements that rhyme while removing windshield wipers from cars as a symbol of peace.
- Work diligently to have the DART tunnel under Central Expressway connected to the Superconducting Super Collider tunnel, in hopes of exposing DART to the rare exotic drug that killed that other government boondoggle.
- Run around White Rock Lake every day; and if you don’t become too tired, run across it.
- Win the lottery. (This happens to be the foundation of my long-range financial plan).
It’s never too late to start something new, stop something bad, or do something you should have already done.
Who knows – maybe even the Richardson School Board will reconsider its previous rejection of a code of conduct that quotes from the Declaration of Independence and embraces such controversial ideas as honesty, integrity, accountability, self-reliance, self-discipline, chastity and fidelity. You know: concepts we once took for granted but are now hesitant to mention for fear of offending others.
Good luck with your resolutions. I’m going to try to keep mine. But that chocolate Santa that was in my stocking is sounding pretty tasty.
As Scarlet would say: “Tomorrow is another day.”
