As odd as it sounds, travel delays may be lessening the damage done to my waistline this Christmas season. First, there was the Eurostar dilemma. My boyfriend was due home from university in London on December 19.
In preparation for his arrival, I bought nice French cheese and sausage and a bottle of Vouvray (a white bubbly that does not happen to come from the Champagne region). That afternoon, I got a call from a friend alerting me that all Eurostar trains had been canceled due to weather-related technical problems in the chunnel. Needless to say, the Vouvray, cheese, and sausage are all still sitting in my fridge. That night I sullenly ate a bowl of soup, easily saving myself 800 calories.
Waiting makes for less merry holiday
You may have already heard about the colossal Eurostar delays to which I’m referring. If so you already know that he did not arrive in Paris the next day, or the next day for that matter. We waited through Sunday and Monday, glued to the Eurostar site, our hope waning with each passing hour. Tuesday he decided to take action, in the form of four buses, three trains and one ferry that amounted to a 17-hour journey that got him to Paris roughly nine hours after I left to visit my family in Germany.
I had anticipated that those two days would be full of eating, drinking and general merry-making to kick off the holiday festivities. Instead, I moped around refusing to do anything fun until Eurostar got its act together. I didn’t drink any mulled wine, eat foie gras or any other holiday delicacy.
Instead, I finished off the contents of my pantry: a half dozen eggs, pasta, two clementines, a blueberry yogurt and a couple beers. While my sulking diet was far from nutritionally sound, I was not yet stuffing myself as we have wont to do at this time of year.
On Tuesday I tried to shake myself out of my frustrated stupor and get in the holiday spirit for my family’s sake. But when I arrived in Düsseldorf, everyone was still in preparation mode. Since Paris is only a 3.5 hour train ride from my Dad’s house I’m there frequently enough that I tend to be regarded as a regular member of the family more than a special guest, especially compared to my brother, who was coming all the way from St. Louis, Missouri. So, the 22nd was filled with last-minute trips to the store and a quick pasta dinner — no festive eating.
My brother was scheduled to get in the next evening after a stopover in Chicago and another in London — two of the worst spots for holiday delays this Christmas. His flight to Chicago was delayed. He missed his trans-Atlantic flight. Since these flights only leave the states in the evening, he spent just under 24 hours in the Chicago airport before leaving the next night for London.
I woke up the morning of the 23rd to my father’s voice on the phone with United Airlines trying to see if there was any combination of flights that would get Tyler to Düsseldorf before the 5 p.m. on the 24th, his new estimated time of arrival.
German traditions get tossed
In Germany, we eat Christmas dinner and open presents on Christmas Eve. But it felt wrong to start the celebration before my brother got in. Our meals seemed to reflect our worry for Tyler, all alone in Chicago, symbolically marking the fact that our family was not yet complete.
On weekends and holidays in Germany breakfast tends to be a huge meal: everyone picks and chooses from big baskets of rolls and croissants, platters of cheese and sausage, hard-boiled eggs and herbed cream cheeses. But this Christmas Eve, we ate cereal.
The night of the 23rd we didn’t eat a special meal to welcome Tyler to Europe. We went to the movies, filled up on snacks there and didn’t feel like eating a real meal once we got home.
On Christmas Eve we usually would have eaten the Christmas feast in early- to mid-afternoon, snacking on Christmas sausages and cookies in the evening, but since we wouldn’t be back from the airport with Tyler until 6ish, the meal got pushed back.
Finally at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve the feasting began. Since Tyler’s arrival, in typical Christmas fashion, plates of Christmas cookies and other snacks have been circulating pretty much constantly. Meals have been taking place at random times because no one’s hungry at normal meal times because of all the cookies and snacks.
We’ve been glued to the couch, watching Christmas movies, drinking wine and reminiscing. Basically, the 25th and 26th have been filled with all the typical Christmas activities that make us gain weight and resolve to be healthier in the New Year. But, it’s only been a couple of days and tomorrow I’m heading back to Paris. Once the Vouvray etc., has been eaten my eating habits will probably be pretty reasonable.
Treats delayed mean less destructive eating
Though the delayed feasting was all an accident, and I don’t recommend eating only eggs and pasta or movie theater nachos, this has made me think that there’s definitely something to be said about delaying fattening pleasures.
Waiting a little bit longer for a dessert is far easier to psychologically handle than telling yourself that you will stop eating desserts completely, and thus more realistic. Holidays could easily work the same way. If we reserved the cookies etc., for one or two days and filled the surrounding days with a few more vegetables, we could potentially avoid the bulk of the catastrophic holiday calories.
(By Chelsie Yount for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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