Loading Up on All Those Holiday Carbs & Sugars
I’ve always thought of the Thanksgiving feast as the feast that never happens
on Christmas day because everyone is too excited to open up all their presents under the tree or that are hung above the fireplace in those cute little stockings, and because everyone is too damn tired to actually cook anything, especially when it is 8am, your kids have been bugging you about opening their presents early and you did all the present wrapping the night before at 1am because that’s when your kids finally fell asleep.
Thanksgiving is great, but I only believe this because it gives us students a break from school and time to catch up on all our homework, and you get to eat all day long, but besides that it doesn’t really matter to me. Thanksgiving dinner has never really been at dinner for my family, mainly its around noon and during the rest of the day we eat left overs and sleep. Poor vegetarians, I can’t help but think often; mainly everything in a Thanksgiving feast has meat besides the desserts of course.
Man, if you are a diabetic, which I am, you better expect tons of carbs and sugars. Why, well because of these demons that tempt you:
Stuffing (doesn’t matter if you use a bread stuffing or a rice stuffing there are still major carbs there).
Any sort of glazes you use on the turkey or ham (major sugar intake).
Potatoes (you might as well just ignore those delicious fluffy clouds of butteryperfection because you will pay for it later when you test your blood sugar).
Any pies (just ignore those too because they are all carbs and sugar and nothing else. I know they taste delicious but you feel that as well later on).
Rolls or any bread products (see what I’m saying?).
Popcorn (too much of this also is bad).
Cake (you can look at it and imagine eating that slice of perfection but it is likeeating three meals for a diabetic when counting all that sugar).
That’s just naming a few things, but as you can see for a diabetic the holidays is like a battle of will and most of the time we fail. It is so hard to say no to sugar and carbs on a daily basis, but the decisions we make today will effect us in our future and we can’t afford those risks. So I suggest to all try to have a sugar-free cake that looks and tastes delicious for your family members who can’t share in that happy delights of eating anything they please.
This is from November of 2001. It’s a self-portrait, including various things I liked at the time: our cat Simba, my sister’s nigh-invulnerable goldfish, purple, my CD player, and “science.”
Who else was made to make “holiday gifts” for their families in grade school? I remember Popsicle-stick snowflakes, clothespin reindeer, large quantities of glitter and felt.
*Yes, I really did have pale blond hair when I was younger.
a thanksgiving tale
My family: me, my father, my mother, my sister. Two uncles and three aunts, two “girl cousins” and three “boy cousins.” Assorted second cousins, third cousins, cousins-removed, great-aunts, great-uncles.
This year, we rejected invitations to Thanksgiving get-togethers and parties.
There’s the perennial dinner at Cousin Barbara’s, a lavish affair with caviar on fresh-baked blini; roast goose with unidentified-berry-compote; seven-layer chocolate cakes frosted in fudge; sage pinwheels made with organic cream cheese; champagne as expensive as a decent used car; pumpkin soup topped with a little swirl of pale green sauce. It also features Cousin Barbara’s Friends, an assorted grouping of boring doctors, boring retired doctors, and boring old-money types who have a perpetual look of disgust in their eyes.
There’s the ever-traveling Weiland-family-supper-thing, this year taking place at the home of my recently-wed cousin Lisa and her husband Sean. Neither know how to cook, so they buy frozen.
Instead, my parents, my sister, my sister’s boyfriend, and I are going to the Thanksgiving buffet at the Savanna House restaurant. It’s in Wadsworth, Illinois, which is an okay place.
Once upon a time (about three years ago,) the Savanna House was a dive bar called Doug’s that advertised cheap beer and an all-you-can-eat fried cod special on Fridays (as it should be.) The cod special remains intact; the atmosphere, not so much. Now there are ferns.
Some recoil at the thought of a Thanksgiving without a big home-cooked meal and piles upon piles of extended family. We rejoice at the idea of not dealing with any of that, and letting someone else wash the dishes.
Winter Holidays…à la Lebanese
*yes, this is a re-posting, but I just wanted to correct something…I guess I could have edited the post, but whatever. I thought this might be quicker. It probably isn’t, though.
As a Lebanese Muslim who spends holidays every year away from my relatives who are thousands of miles away, I can honestly say I greatly appreciate the abundance of winter holidays in America.
Take Thanksgiving. As of yet, there is no equivalent for Thanksgiving in Lebanon, other than, of course, every family get-together that is never complete without plenty and plenty of food. It’s true. Here’s a picture if you don’t believe me (and sorry for the bad quality…it’s a picture of a picture. Hi-tech, right?):
So even though we had never celebrated Thanksgiving before (much less heard of it), my family was pretty quick to pick up on it after arriving in America twenty years ago. In fact, we plan on spending this Thanksgiving with a small group of Arab family friends, who, it seems, also don’t mind having an additional food-related holiday to celebrate.
And then there’s Christmas. It’s true, I don’t celebrate it, but I love the atmosphere that comes with it. There’s something about trees covered in lights that gets me every time. We’re also pretty big on tree-decorating in Lebanon (for both Muslim and Christian holidays, since the country is split fairly evenly between the two), except in Lebanon, I don’t think there’s enough trees for everyone to put one in their home. Slight exaggeration, but not entirely untrue. Instead, we (I’m not sure precisely who, really) wrap lights around the palm trees that are planted on the median of the road. I wish I had a picture to share of the trees with the lights on, but I suppose this one of the palm trees, coupled with your imaginations, will have to do.
And of course, there can be no Christmas without mass shopping, and—materialism and commercialism aside—let me just say, it’s a nice little reminder of home to see people rushing to the stores as though sales are as rare as diamonds, which they kind of are in the massively overpriced Lebanese stores.
So there you have it: Winter = Lebanon (at least in my mind). So if I’m walking around campus, looking dazed or a little disoriented, you can blame it on the spirit of the season, whisking me a thousand miles away to a place where even mid-winter nights refuse to come within ten degrees of freezing.
It’s Christmas Eve in Washington…Which is My Home Town!
Growing up 10 minutes outside of our countries capital is quite an upbringing. Traffic, threats from terrorists, lockdowns during school, and (on occasion) waving to the president as his caravan of all black, window tinted escalades roll by, is pretty much the everyday life up there. However, when Christmas time comes around, all of that seems to be blocked out. Every year my family and I go see the national tree in front of the White House, and every year it gets more and more amazing. The vibe of the city during the holidays is something I always look forward to. The lights, decorations, and even the spirits of those who work or live there make it an extremely welcoming place. Not saying it isn’t like that year round…ok, let’s be honest…we all hate it when tourist’s get in our way and make us stand in line at the at our usual lunch place when they get off their tour buses…but all of that annoyance seems to vanish in DC once the lights are hung and the National trees on Capital Hill and the White House are up! If you ever get the chance to visit DC during the holiday’s, I highly recommend it! I’ll even let you stand in line with me at lunch. :)
This time of year really brings out my lovable side…haha Cap. Hill with my family!
First year that the lights on the tree have been BLUE!
I’m dreaming of a…White Wedding!
Now, this time of year is not just about gifts or having an extremely long break…Christmas, my friends, is the GREATEST time of year and happens to be the time where most of the world is happy. I’m not going to lie, I have an obsession with the holiday season. For the last 15 years, I have come to believe that in a past life I was an elf. Not one of those elves who shoot magical arrows or have any connection what-so-ever to Orlando Bloom. I’m talkin’ about a jingle bell wearing, toy making, sugar cookie decorating, Christmas shwasted elf! Yes, if you saw someone dressed in an elf costume the last week of school around campus, it was most likely me…but I rep. my heritage proudly! Anywho, it came to my attention a couple months ago when one of my best friends got engaged (I happen to be a secret wedding planner, if you didn’t already know) and she asked me to help her with everything. Which got me thinking…what would I want MY wedding to be like. Well, I’ll tell you…a Christmas themed wedding of course! Why not celebrate a happy beginning during the happiest time of the year? Exactly. There are no reasons! (I eat, breath, live Christmas year round…it’s how I was raised) After thinking everything through, I began researching and came across MANY ideas for a Christmas wedding!! 
Admit it…now I’ve got you thinkin’, right? ;)
Marry Christmas!
We wish you a Scary Merry Christmas!
My family photo from last year
Bah-Humbug?
Ah, Christmahanukwanzikah-a joyous time for many. Personally, I feel like as I’ve gotten older, holidays and their significance have changed and perhaps lost some of their appeal. Halloween just happened, and I’d like to think it’s my favorite holiday, but to be honest, I can’t enjoy it the same way as I did when I was a kid. Trick-or-treating was totally awesome and I could eat candy without a. feeling like a fatty and b. having horrible toothaches….ah, times have changed.
I now refer to Easter as Zombie Jesus Day because well, it sounds cooler and makes me chortle just a little bit. Valentine’s Day sucks if you aren’t dating anyone…and often times is miraculously worse when you are dating someone. (I once dated a guy who bought me one of those cheap fake ‘flower in a glass stem pipe’ things that you buy for like 50cents at a gas station. I later found out that said pipes are often used for smoking crack. He was no crackhead, but needless to say, he wasn’t a ‘keeper.’) Personally, I don’t like ANY Thanksgiving food which yes, makes seem picky and unappreciative, but hey—out of all the holidays that are more or less based on consumption, Thanksgiving is the main one where the sole purpose is to get together with your homies and FEAST. But what fun is that if you don’t like the foods!? I know, I know, I’m a scrooge…which brings me back to Christmas—or—as the Disney Channel taught me is the better way to rep the holidays, Christmahanukwanzikah.
In my overzealous present-hungry youth, Christmas was about gettin’ stuff. I’d like to think that it has evolved into a much more meaningful and sentimental occasion, but I also think that people should just appreciate their families and treat them with kindness and generosity year-round. There are maybe a few classic Xmas tunes that I wouldn’t mind hearing on and off throughout the year as well. Maybe. But one thing I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is that Christmas has lost much of the ‘magic’ that seemed to have been there in my childhood. Granted, something about the snow makes the world seem wondrous and serene and maybe it’s just because I was born and raised in Michigan, but I get really excited and feel like there are gingerbread fairies dancing around in my tiny black heart….but if there is no snow on Christmas..it. just. isn’t. Christmas.
I love giving people gifts and tokens of my affection, but not junk they don’t need, want, or won’t like— I mean really really good gifts. I love it when you can see a genuine smile light up a person’s face because you’ve put thought into getting or making something meaningful to them. It’s great. I also like to think I’m a good gift-giver, but as people get older and acquire more junk, it becomes much more difficult to buy good gifts. For a few years consecutively I got everyone in the immediate family prints of some of my photographs and they really seemed to like it. It was fun for me to take and select photos that I thought would be resonant to specific family members. Oh, and it was pretty affordable too, so that was a plus. After about two or three years of photo gifts, though, I’m pretty sure the charm has ceased to be present…(see what I did there?) Presently, I feel obligated to buy things for people because we are nearning Christmas, but I’m a broke college kid, so what do I do!? Gotta get creative in a different way I guess. Personalized poems? Too cheesy? Still, I’d rather get/do nice things for people all throughout the year on random days because it feels more sincere than the consumerist-driven holy-daze.
Merry KwannuhanzaaChrist.
Holidaysss!
Since the holidays are coming up, and the leaves are changing we love thinking about our Thanksgiving feast, leaves changing, curling up by a fire place, drinking hot chocolate, wishing for snow, warm clothes to wear, christmas lights, where to christmas shop, turkey season, traditions, and so on. I think pictures are the best way to show the images we love to imagine in our head of the perfect holiday! So I decided to display pictures that put me in the holiday spirit!
