Be Merry, Then Eat and Drink

Tis the season to be merry. For many of us the holidays just wouldn’t feel complete without certain foods and beverages.

Christmas cookies, for example.

My mother still makes many of the same cookies she and my grandmother made when I was a child. In addition to the traditional cut-out cookies with colorful sugars and sprinkles, some of my favorites to see on a holiday cookie platter included Peanut Blossoms (that peanut-butter-like cookie with a Hershey’s kiss on top) and Potato Chip Cookies (a light, buttery cookie containing crushed potato chips and dusted with powdered sugar—the perfect combination of sweet and salty).

Tom & Jerry’s are the beverage I associate with the Christmas season. The popular version where I grew up in the midwest is a hot eggnog-style toddy made with brandy and rum and served topped with a dollop of whipped cream and a dash of nutmeg. Again, I associate this with my grandmother. She made her own batter, a combination of eggs, sugar, and spices. Even as a kid I enjoyed this beverages (sans the alcohol, of course).

Another treat I associate with Christmas is a special chip dip made from sour cream, canned tiny shrimp, and garlic salt. It’s a simple recipe, but it was special for our family mostly because we only had it once a year—on Christmas Eve.

Our family’s tradition the night before Christmas was to go to the candlelight service at our church then drive around town looking at all the holiday lights. Miraculously while we were away, Santa would’ve arrived and delivered our presents. We would open our gifts that evening. Inevitable someone would’ve received some kind of game that we could all play together. We’d stay up late into the night playing the new game and snacking on our once-a-year shrimp dip and chip treat.

I’m sure you have your own holiday favorites and memories associated with them.

While I still enjoy our family’s shrimp dip, Christmas cookies, and Tom & Jerry’s, it isn’t so much that they are my absolute favorite foods. It is more about the memories I associate with those tastes. I connect those flavors to happy times.

Those memories were created because I was happy first and then ate the food.

It doesn’t work the other way around.

The thing to be clear on is that it isn’t the food that makes me happy. The happiness is related to thoughts of happy times evoked by the food, not from the actual food itself.

I can conjure up the thoughts (and therefore, the happiness) with or without eating the food.

There is not a food in the world that can create the emotion of happiness.

This might seem confusing because we get enjoyment from and find pleasure in food. But that is not the same as feeling the emotion of being happy.

If it were true that the food made us happy, then it would follow that the more of that food we ate the happier we would be. Clearly that is not the case.

Thoughts create emotions. Not food.

My advice for the holidays is to switch up the traditional saying just little. Instead of "eat, drink, and be merry." I suggest getting merry first, then eating and drinking.