Well, the big-three holiday stretch is upon us and time to form a strategy to prevent it from causing us to stretch out too much. One researcher reported that the average American adds one pound to his or her body weight during the holidays. How on earth did they arrive at that minuscule number? Did the poll include skeletons in the grave? Did they only survey ultra-marathon runners? People I speak to say that they add at least five pounds, and that is just from looking at the holiday recipes and accompanying photos in the newspaper.

Just as the holiday shopping season kicks off earlier each year, so does the calorie-loading season. It starts several weeks prior to Halloween. Oh, it’s very subtle at first, to be sure. Innocently enough, the wife picks up a few bags of “bite size” candy bars and slyly hides them in the cupboard right behind the corroded gallon jar of wheat germ which you had planned to add to a five-pound bag of oatmeal, which also has long ago rotted.

But, of course, it isn’t long, say five minutes, before the kids uncover the secret hideaway and begin to pilfer tiny bar after bar, leaving a telltale tinfoil trail. So, of course, Dad has to step in and cut off the gravy train, only to make a mental note of the location and soon undertake his own stealthy sugar heist. Initially, he justifies a few bars to supplement his lunch at work. Next, he tops off his regular dessert after dinner with “a bite of chocolate” to satisfy his craving.

Eventually Dad is grabbing a bar every time he passes the cupboard so that by Halloween the costumed beggars at the door have to be satisfied with one of those rock hard lumps permanently sealed with Gorilla Glue inside orange or black paper which you scratch and claw at until you eventually give up and eat the paper and candy both. Then when you try to chew the candy it pops out several fillings and by the time that happens you beg for something less torturous to eat like an apple full of razor blades.

By the time Halloween night is over, and Mom and Dad have eaten more candy than they handed out, they have such a sugar buzz that they’re running up and down the walls like Spiderman, Batman, and Superman all morphed into Glucose-man.

Immediately after Halloween, the push begins to convince Americans that they must start early to acquire adequate stuffing for Thanksgiving. During this period, the grocery stores face a frenzy of shoppers who can easily fill a grocery cart per family member. And when the big Thanksgiving day meal is finally ready and served, there will be plenty of gobbling going on — and it won’t be by the turkeys.

One of the great aspects of the Christmas season is that one can quadruple his or her calorie intake without spending a penny on food. Everywhere you go there is free food. People I’ve never even seen before will stop me on the sidewalk and shove jars of cashews and mints in my face. At work, platters of homemade goodies always mysteriously appeared in the office and quickly disappeared.

In fact, I discovered that fellow employees will eat absolutely anything. It can be hard as a rock, burnt black as coal, or melted into a slimy jelly-like substance that one must eat with a straw — doesn’t matter. I could place the most hideous looking, teeth-jarring, stale baked goods in the office, turn my back for a second, and they would be gone. Not only would someone eat it but quite often the gleefully grinning victim would even compliment the beneficent donor. “I can’t believe your family wouldn’t eat that green meatloaf; it was deeeeelicious!”

I believe that one even has to question the sanity of eating some of the classic Christmas fare. Would we actually eat a lot of this stuff if it wasn’t for some spirit-of-the-season obligation? Can you see yourself sitting down to an eggnog shake and a dish of divinity on a stifling hot July afternoon? No, certainly not. This is stuff that people in their right minds simply would not normally ingest. And how about soaking up some rays while lying on the beach and biting into a sticky green popcorn ball with a hunk of fruit cake for a chaser? You can’t be serious. Yet during the Christmas season we think nothing of eating it. With the big-three holidays under our belts, it should come as no surprise that the number one New Year’s resolution is to lose weight.

Mike Murphy retired after a 35-year teaching and coaching career. He has a master’s degree in English from the University of Nebraska and is an Associated Press award-winning columnist.

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