Healthy Living: Merry Christmas, Tips for Surviving Into the Next Year

Ho, ho, ho, and Merry Christmas to you and yours.  It's that time once again when we give presents, receive presents, look for reindeer, and are obligated to eat too much.  So when you're looking down and wondering where your feet went, it may be time to push away from the cookie jar and run for the nearest gym.

Surely, in our search for healthy living and healthy eating there are some steps we can take to minimize the expansion of our girth during the holidays without putting ourselves on bread and water.....well, maybe garlic bread.  Here are my 10 "must dos and don'ts" for the holidays which are carved in sandstone and written in vanishing ink....very permanent:

1. Don't feel you need to finish off the cookies that Santa left.
2. Stay away from reindeer food....it's got magic dust in it after all.  
3. When cooking Christmas breakfast don't cook the eggs in bacon fat...that's what the cavemen did because they didn't have Olivio.  
4. Do eat muffins....America was built on great muffins (The Pilgrims brought the first ones with them in 1620)
5. When you cook the roast beast, don't over cook it.....you can always cook it more, but you can't cook it less.  
6. Do have lots of egg nog.....that's another thing the Pilgrims brought over.....I think.  
7. Do have an ice cream cake for baby Jesus.  It's a great tradition and I know in my heart that He approves.
8. Don't worry about the dishes, the dish fairies will surely come to your house and bail you out.....hmmm, I'm still waiting.....waiting. 
9. Naps are allowed.....at any time...for any reason.  After all, the kids will eventually run themselves out and you will have regained your energy to supervise all those dish fairies.  
10. Above all, do get all the used wrappings, bows, and ribbons stashed in bags for the garbage man on pick-up day, and do make sure that there are no children in any of the bags.   

Christmas and the holidays are a great time and after a gathering of the whole family you understand why the original holiday planners decided to have them only once a year.  Eleven months from now you'll be ready to do it all over again.  

Good luck in the New Year on your quest for healthy living and healthy eating.  I'll be here cheering you on.  Meanwhile, stay healthy my friends.