Stick to a budget and eat right? Fat chance

It’s Christmas Season. Sit back, relax and light up that big roll of salami

I’m not really sure how to mark the start of the Christmas Season.

Is it the first day you see the Salvation Army lady at the door of the supermarket? Is it the first time you notice the neighbour’s houses are lit up — and yours isn’t? Or do you, like me, wait for a more spiritual, magical moment: like when the LCBO first starts playing Christmas tunes in the store?

Many people mistakenly believe that the Christmas Season has its roots in Judeo-Christian history and theology. They think the Christmas Season — the 30 days before December 25 — was for subjecting themselves to horrible punishments to atone for their sins. How else to explain the existence of Christmas fruit cake or Johnny Mathis’ version of “Winter Wonderland”?

But the Christmas Season was actually invented in the 1920s by the World Retail Council and the American Diet Association to encourage everyone to buy and eat as much as possible in the month leading up to Christmas.

I may have made that last part up, but you get the idea. We used to overdo it on egg nog and chocolates for a day or two, but the invention of the “Christmas Season” meant 30 full days of shopping and gluttony.

Controlling the shopping part is quite easy and can be done using a couple of reasonable and simple financial steps suggested to me by our accountant Eddy “Slippery Fingers” Boombatzo.

First, find all the credit cards in the house — and light them on fire.

Then disable the car. You can do this by a couple of technical means. Either remove one or multiple leads to the spark plugs or simply do what I do: leave your gym bag in the back seat for a week. Either way, no one will use the car.

(Once Christmas is over, you can get rid of the smell in your car pretty easily by setting it ablaze with a blow torch.)

Of course, this won’t completely stop them from shopping. Every year we go through what I now call The Great Christmas Debate. We pick an evening before the Christmas Season begins for my wife and I to discuss the issue like intelligent adults. I present formal written arguments about why we need to economize and reduce our Christmas spending and my wife tells me to “Be quiet” and then leaves to go shopping. As she’s heading out the door, I ask her what the bulge is in her purse.

“A gas mask,” she says. “I’m using your car.”

Once the battle over Christmas spending is lost, you can focus on Christmas overeating.

For years, food scientists had warned us about the danger of eating fats. This led in 1977 to the beginning of The War on Fat. The government declared that all fats — in milk and cheese and meat — were making people fat. It seemed like a pretty simple idea: “You are what you eat.”

Later, when they talked to the scientist who had led the charge against fats, he admitted he had made a mistake. It was actually a typing error, he said. “I meant to say that rats were bad for people. Rats, not fats. I’m sorry.”

By then, of course, it was too late. So for decades all of us worried about eating eggs, cream and cheese. We still ate them, of course. We just felt guilty about it. Today, fats are back! And just in time for the holidays. Unfortunately, scientists now tell us that carbohydrates — “carbs” — are the problem, with sugar as public enemy No. 1. This is a real challenge during a season where the three main food groups are: chocolate, cookies and sugar plums, though no one really knows what sugar plums are.

But fear not. The new War on Sugar means the Fun Police are so busy lashing out against cookies and chocolates that they have totally forgotten about the War on Fat and the War on Drugs.

So, this Christmas Season, feel free to roll up some salami and roll up a big fat joint. Just make sure you light the right one.