In the spirit of the season, we want to extend to every last person “From the Bay to the Blue Ridge and Beyond” who peruses these print pages or scrolls through those online or keeps up with our Facebook and Instagram activity, the happiest of holidays! We want to leave you laughing in 2025 and think this piece written by Frances Kilpatrick will do just that! We can’t take ourselves too seriously these days….

Bob & Erin – Lani – Peppercorn

Christmas Calories – A Holiday Fantasy

By Frances Killpatrick

Tired of all of the internet advice and reading wimpy women’s magazines – including the sage advice of the OTC Fitness gurus who pen columns for this pub – and their annual rehash of advice on how to handle calories and parties during the holiday season?

You know, like “drinking three gallons of water before a party.” You must admit it works. Very few party givers set up that yummy buffet table in the bathroom, where you will spend your fun-filled evening!

What do these self-appointed nutrition “experts” know anyway? Their idea of a fun party is trying out tofu recipes on defenseless laboratory animals.

True believers in the holiday spirit know this simple fact: Certain holiday situations totally cancel out normal caloric considerations.

For example, there are absolutely NO calories in:

– Food sold for charity. This includes candy, fruit cakes and pizza kits. Of course, go easy on those oranges and grapefruit!

– Food made by a co-worker who says, “I stayed up ‘til 3 a.m. baking these damned cookies and somebody in this office better eat them!”

– Food or drink served at a party for which you have received a written invitation.

– Cider, hot chocolate and doughnuts which you have to eat because the damn carolers skipped your house again this year. It was a lovely gesture on your part, even if you forgot to turn on the porch lights. Do you pretend to be perfect?

– Cider, hot chocolate and doughnuts offered to you if you happen to be doing the caroling. After all, trying to see all of the words to “Silent Night” with a flashlight containing a half-dead battery you’ve been meaning to replace (but obviously didn’t) takes a lot out of a person!

– Cookies, brownies, fudge or fruit cake sent to you by anyone over the age of 65, especially if it’s your Aunt Martha. The fact that she lives in Fairbanks, Alaska and wouldn’t know if you ate the cookies (or gave them to people claiming to have made them yourself) is totally beside the point. Such deception would be highly immoral and not worthy of you.

– Cookies made for you by any child – yours or anyone else’s. Even if these filthy, gray creations look more like something waiting to be taken to a toxic waste disposal instead of like Christmas trees, a gum drop is a gum drop, and don’t you forget it.

– Food eaten while watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas or the original black and white production of It’s a Wonderful Life. (Colorizing adds 6,000 calories to anything).

– Home-cured bacon and hams sent to you by your cousin, Billy Bob Greaseback in Mountain Creek, Arkansas. You should not be deterred by remembering that Cousin Billy Bob resembles his porcine stock even when he is wearing his hat.

– Pie, cake, Irish coffee, egg nog, champagne, sacher torte or any dessert or pastry purchased from an overpriced caterer eaten while listening to The Messiah. Some things are sacred and should not be defiled by nutritionists. With Bach’s Magnificat in D, add whipped cream to everything!

About the Author: Frances Kilpatrick has been a friend of the OTC since the beginning almost 38 years ago. She was instrumental in keeping it afloat in the early years. She is one funny gal and we owe a debt of gratitude to this very formidable little lady!