The holidays season is nigh. It's a festive time when we get actual mail instead of just bills and Brookstone catalogs, when we can drink and eat to excess with minimal judgment, and we finally, hopefully get that bonus. (Editor's note: Two out of three ain't bad, right?)
Still, it's not all sugar plums and gumdrops. We overeat, we overspend, we self medicate with expired prescription drugs, we cry in the shower. The pressure to have a "perfect" holiday has largely overtaken the pressure to be a nice person. Yet, we toy-soldier on.
But our unacceptable behavior can't go unpunished. Thus, we have compiled a list of Christmas-season food crimes and suitable punishments.
Crime: Giving a Hilshire Farm gift basket, which consists of foods that not only have no nutritional value but that almost anyone could afford to buy themselves, but they don't, because it's terrible.
Punishment: The guilt of knowing you've just given your friend the gift of crippling stomach pains and self loathing. Also you have to eat a McRib.
Crime: Desperately trying to have a Martha Stewart Christmas.
Punishment: Spend five months in jail, have daughter write a tell-all book about how awful you are, burn turkey, burn pies, cry, scream "I hate you all" at family.
Crime: Getting drunk at the office party.
Punishment: Waking up in Joanne the office manager's apartment, having to stay as she introduces you to her 15 cats and each cat's corresponding Willow Tree figurine.
Crime: Not having Peppermint Schnapps on hand.
Punishment: Having to find a new coping mechanism after your mother tells you that you are too old to dress like that.
Crime: Making it a Walgreen's Christmas. Punishment: Eating a box of their chocolate-covered cherries, most likely manufactured during the first World War.
Crime: Allowing your party guests to pick up on the tension stemming from the fight that just erupted between you and your husband regarding how to work the turkey fryer.
Punishment: Guests can hold you down and force the two of you into a Rob Ryan-sized Christmas sweater until you can work things out.
Crime: Being insensitive to your Jewish friends about their holiday foods and traditions.
Punishment: Aforementioned Jewish friends are allowed to teach you fake kitschy Yiddish expressions so that when you are trying to expound on your "mazel tov" sentiment you are actually saying, "I've killed a bunch of drifters and buried them under my house."
The law is firm and justice should be swift. There's eggnogg to drink.
