By MATTERS BY JACK NEWORTH
The holiday season is far too long. I’d say it’s a marathon, but a marathon is only three hours and this takes six weeks. It all starts with Thanksgiving where this year I did something unthinkable. I ate an entire pie. (Apparently unthinkable doesn’t mean uneatable.) It was pumpkin and the scary part is I don’t even like pumpkin pie. In one sitting, you ask? The next morning when I got up, I thought about finishing the pie. After all breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Only there was nothing left to finish. As the antacid commercial goes, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”
The following day I read in the Times that Americans are getting fat at an epidemic proportion. I immediately put the paper down. How did they know about the pie? The article went on to say there’s now a nasal spray that fights obesity by blocking the senses of smell and taste. Compellis Pharmaceuticals will begin human trials next year. Great, next Thanksgiving when I’m offered pie, I’ll just whip out nasal spray.
At Christmas I tried to exercise a little more self control. Eating a whole pie in one day is disgusting. So this time I did it over two. It was apple. If the holidays don’t end soon, I’m going to wind up a pieaholic. I’ll be at P.A. meetings (Pie Anonymous) admit-ting I’m powerless... over pie. I guess if I fall off the wagon, my “lost weekend” will be at House of Pies!
So that was Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 48 hours the marathon continues with New Year’s Eve,which means more food and champagne. On New Year’s Day it’s the bowl games, more food, beer, until, like a bad hangover, the party is over. Well, almost. Actually it’s not officially over until after the Superbowl.
The celebration of the new year is the oldest of all holidays. It began in ancient Babylon 4000 years ago where a typical New Year’s party could last 11 days. (Paris Hilton, eat your heart out.) In the first centuries AD the Romans continued celebrating the new year but the Catholic Church condemned the festivities as “paganism.” (This was obviously before the Rose Bowl.) Speaking of the Rose Bowl, I did some research. The Rose Parade dates back to 1886 when members of the Valley Hunt Club decorated their carriages with flowers to celebrate the orange crop. The football game was first played in 1902, but was replaced the next year by Roman chariot races (Apparently it was a very low scoring game.) The football game finally returned in 1916 but there’s no truth to the rumor Keith Jackson did the play-by-play.
After all the football and partying, finally it’s back to reality, which of course is why they invented “New Year’s Resolutions.” But after six weeks of bingeing, you’re in no shape for making resolutions. The mind is willing, but the body is shot. The very first New Year’s resolution was probably Adam promising Eve he’d finally get around to pruning the apple tree. In actual history the tradition dates back to the early Babylonians whose most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment, or in our modern world, the lawnmower. Or more like it the MP3 player.
Today the most common New Year’s resolution is quitting smoking, followed by joining a gym, followed by finishing one’s column on time. (The last one I made up as a headstart to my own list.) To gym owners the month of January is just the beginning of the holiday season. Guilt-ridden folks flock in droves with good intentions and open checkbooks. But many stop going not long after their check clears. All because of poor judgment caused by a holiday season that goes on far too long.
An example of the appropriate time for celebrating is Easter. During Spring Break nobody party’s harder than the kids, (exactly when did “party” become a verb?) but Spring Break is only for a week. Even at age 18 that’s about all they can take. When I was 18 it wasn’t during the Rose Bowl chariot races era, but some days it feels like it. (Especially after I eat an entire pie.) So how’s this for a New Year’s resolution? Let’s have Thanksgiving in the summer. Maybe combine it with July 4th? At least move it closer to Christmas. I know this goes against everything holy in America, i.e. cutting the number of shopping days before Christmas, but the human body wasn’t made for six weeks of partying. (Unless you’re Dennis Rodman.) So give the idea some thought. In the meantime, crack open the champagne... Happy New Year!
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 29, 2006. Read the original PDF.