Last Christmas...

"It's the most wonderful time of the year.. "
Or so the Christmas song goes. It's that time of the year again and it came out of nowhere.. It's only 7 days to Christmas day.
As the song goes.. I usually WOULD think it's the most wonderful time of the year. But this year, I'm not too sure what to make of it.

There's so much to say on the subject. So many things that I thought I would be doing by now, so many things I thought I'd be capable of by now, so many visions I had months ago of where I'd be right now, so many things that are associated with Christmas that can no longer be the reason for my Christmas to be a magical one, so many altered opinions as to how and why this should be the best time of the year and that's not even mentioning the mental pressure I put upon myself for Christmas be to the best and the expectations I have from myself as to how I should be and act and feel on the big day.

I was talking to Diann about it on Monday. It's been slowly building up over the past weeks. To be honest, even back in July I would think about Christmas dinners and all the food that I'll be expected to eat. But it's really only started to play on my mind ever since I got back from Holland 3 weeks ago. I've been trying to gear myself up for it and to save my energy as well as trying to deal with my head every day, trying to pick myself up when I'm feeling down and trying to push the boundaries a little bit more each week (I'm not going to push the boundaries each day anymore, but from now on, each week..that's a better time-scale I reckon..not as much pressure).

The thing that was worrying me the most, was of course the food. That goes without saying. Isn't that what Christmas is all about? For most people it is. On the telly, on the radio, in the shops.. it's everywhere.. chocolate, sweets, roast dinner, pudding, cream, alcohol.. on and on the list goes. In the build-up to Christmas, some people do their best to loose weight so they can pig out at Christmas and put back on the weight. Then after Christmas the dieting starts.. "Loose that Christmas weight and get thin for the summer holidays!". So for the majority of people, Christmas IS about eating. I think of it now, and I just makes me want to be sick.. Even though I enjoy food now and I like most of the Christmas traditional grub. But the amount is just nausiating.

The past years, Christmas has gotten harder and harder. My family will never forget, 3 Christmasses ago, when I heard on the radio that each person eats around 6000 calories on Christmas day. They hated me for saying that and the worst thing was they all thought that I had sat down and calculated the amount.. No, back then I THAT obsessed, however I did go running on boxing day, to burn off all the fat I had eaten the day before and I couldn't and didn't speak to anybody for the remainder of the day, for being in such a foul mood. I didn't really know why it effected me so much and I had no idea what was going on.. Maybe now I do.

2 years ago, I was in Oz, which was a blessing in disguise. I missed my family so so much and was a little home-sick at the thought of missing out on all the fun. On the other hand, it meant I didn't have to indulge or worry about being confronted with or expected to eat fattening food. I was by the beach, with people I was traveling with. We drank beers all afternoon and had a kebab for our Christmas dinner. It was great, I had no worries..

Last year, wasn't great. No, that's not true. Being around everybody was great, just being around all the food, wasn't. It started Christmas eve. We were all sleeping in Orla's house and having a bit of a "drinking night in, with nibbles". So I didn't have dinner, because I knew there would be lots to eat and beer to drink. I had beers and then I was picking at chocolates (After eight's..humm) and bread with dips, all evening. The next morning.. the dreaded fry-up. This was the meal that was going to be the worst. Because it was the meal I didn't want and didn't deserve. I dreaded starting the day, with fatty food and carrying that unhealthy feeling with me for the rest of the day. I wanted muesli. But other years, I would always have some fry-up so of course Ma was trying to get me to eat some. Just to please Ma, I had some scrambled egg on toast, which made it look like I had eaten something fatty and that I wasn't scared of fatty foods.

Between breakfast and dinner, I had 4 pieces of chocolate (Cadbury Roses). And then, I went upstairs, and weighed myself.. All was okay, because I was 38 kilo's. Which I remember shocked me, because it was the first time I ever weighed less than 40. At that stage, I had been back in Holland 6 weeks, since my travels, I hadn't weighed myself, because I didn't have access to a weighing scales. So after 6 weeks living a normal life, thinking I was eating properly, and listening to friends and family telling me how skinny I'd gotten, I had managed to loose 2 kilo's.. And I felt amazing.. because I didn't feel I had made a huge effort to loose these 2 kilo's. It was a strange feeling. But I had lost them and that was great. Especially to discover this on Christmas day!! Just before sitting down to the most fattening dinner I had eaten in probably 2 years.. It was like the best Christmas present ever!

And then it was time to enjoy the Christmas dinner. The roast. I was hungry and had been gearing myself up for it, and hadn't eaten properly because of it and had just discovered I had lost 2 kilo's... So I was allowed to "indulge"!!!Bring on the turkey!! And lets go totally overboard and have some roast potatoes-even though they were baked in oil and butter and drenched in gravey!!! I had to have lots of veggies..to make up for the fat I was feeding myself and the abuse I was putting my body through. I had dessert.. or no, come to think of it, I had an Irish coffee instead. The rest of the night I drank whiskey on the rocks and didn't eat anything else.

I felt so good, for not stuffing my face. Because if I would have stuffed my face, I would have been in a foul mood and would have hated myself so much. But I don't think it's only people with eating disorders who feel so awful when they stuff their faces.. Doesn't everybody hate the bloated feeling, the feeling you can't breathe properly or the food might come back up again, the feeling that you've put on 5 kilo's in the space of 2 hours and the feeling like you'll never ever be hungry again. Isn't that awful?? To everybody?? But the difference might be, that people with eating disorders hate THEMSELVES after overeating and people who don't have a disorder just hate the FEELING after overeating..

Anyhow, all this food-talk isn't doing me much good at the moment as I sit in the kitchen, listening to Christmas songs on the radio.. All this Christmas joy.. or just worry about food..