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Past Thought for the week messages Christmas and emotional eating
Past Thought for the week messages Christmas and emotional eating | Christmas and emotional eating |
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We all know how easy it is to pile on the pounds over Christmas and we tend to assume that it is all about the food – rich, plentiful and irresistible. This is certainly part of the equation, but there is more. For many people Christmas opens a Pandora’s box of emotions, many of which are at total odds with the way we are meant to feel during the festive season. Here is an excerpt from a letter which poignantly reveals how Christmas memories can awaken the sleeping dragon of emotional eating…. “As I was sitting down to work today, I had a strong urge to eat even though I was not hungry. And I didn’t want to eat just anything — I wanted fruitcake. This Christmas is the first time I have made fruitcake as an adult. My mother made fruitcake several years in a row when I was a preschooler and it shocked me how vividly I remembered standing on a kitchen chair as a three and four-year-old, stirring the fruit mixture with a huge spoon The taste of the raw mixture, the smell of the spices, the little baking rituals all came back in waves. ‘My father moved out when I was six. As I recall them, the Christmasses before he left were magical, and much of the magic was food: the fruitcake ritual, a huge plate of grandmother’s mince pies and Terry’s chocolate oranges in the stockings my mother stuffed for me and my Dad. ‘Kids of divorce know that holidays are never the same afterwards. My mother did her best but Christmas after Dad left meant an intensification of sadness, rejection and anxiety.” Another emotion which comes readily to mind when I think about Christmas is STRESS. The sheer physical feat of getting everything ready on time; of making sure that nothing has been forgotten; of coping with crowds in the supermarkets; of trying to maintain a semblance of unity and good will among relatives who don’t talk all year and come together awkwardly for a brief cessation of hostilities. The strain Christmas puts on families is evident. Statistics show that January is the busiest month for divorce lawyers. Then there is loneliness. There are few things in life more awful than feeling empty and alone at Christmas. For those of us separated from loved ones and yet surrounded by images of happy homes and families, Christmas can seem like a mockery or cruel joke. Back in 1975 the band MUD produced a single entitled ‘Lonely this Christmas’. The fact that it spent four weeks at the top of the charts is testimony enough to how many people identified with its lyrics… Try to imagine a house that’s not a home, Try to imagine a Christmas all alone. That’s where I’ll be since you left me; Please know that Jesus sees, understands and cares. Right now He is standing right beside you, waiting to wrap His loving arms around you and to give you the twin gifts of His peace and His presence. So come apart for a moment, away from the hustle and bustle, and seek His face. Give Him the gift of your trust and gratitude for life, It may not be all that you would wish right now, but in the darkness of your Winter sky, a bright light shines. Its name is HOPE. Let it guide you to where the baby lies and together with the Wise Men of old, kneel at His feet and worship. My tears could melt the snow... There are no easy answers to all these situations, but getting back to the real Christmas, without all the razzatatazz that commercialism has given it is, I believe, some comfort. Jesus was born into a world full of pain and suffering; He came to His own and His own didn’t receive Him; He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Tempting as it may be to seek for comfort in food this Christmas or to deaden your negative feelings with alcohol these remedies will only work in the short term. Afterwards you will not only have to face your emotions again but will have an expanded waistline to deal with as well. It just isn’t worth it! |
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