Eatdrink #44 November/December 2013

62 www.eatdrink.ca
№ 44 | November/December 2013
the lighter side
Christmas Mouse Trap
By SUe SUtherLAND WOOD
There’s no shortage of advice on
how to combat holiday stress,
including directives to think
ahead, make lists, delegate and
above all, keep it simple. But even after
distilling this strategy (and an alcoholic
verb seems appropriate here) the core
issue for me remains either doing what
I already know is too much, or else
forfeiting a cherished tradition and thereby
disappointing someone. Anyone. And let’s
be honest, family members know how
to select the skewer devised especially
for the heart and will use it ruthlessly if
shortbread — or lack of — is at risk. “But
how can it even be Christmas without
[insert labour-intensive
baked goods of your choice
here]. You always make that!”
This, delivered in a winsome
Tiny Tim voice, can usually
unsettle most mothers even
if the reclining someone
is conversing with you in
between festive blasts of
Grand Theft Auto (Of course Tiny Tim had
a crutch instead of a controller but I’ll leave
that comparative analysis alone for now.)
The enemies of the exhausted cook during
the holiday season are many. But social
media in its varying guises is the worst. Take
Pinterest: an enjoyable hour here and there
allows us to create the sumptuous illusion of
being productive, creative and ahead-of-thegame
but ultimately there’s the (cranberryvanilla
infused) rub! Rather than actually
making that Christmas cake with the lemonbased
royal icing and artfully scattering
some tiny silver balls (it’s like they’ve been
shot from miniature muskets, I always feel)
we are slowly becoming overwhelmed by
more and more (albeit extremely cool) things
to do while not having the time to actually
follow through.
Facebook is equally unhelpful. We’re
taunted by perfect photos of other people’s
apparent realities. Everyone else’s family
is “kicking back with mulled wine and the
whole house smells of cinnamon! Life is
good.” Am I the only one still folding laundry
at 9:45 in the evening so that my children
don’t have to dress by the light of the dryer?
There’s also a strange hollowness in all this
documentation. Lately, I have watched many
people carefully “styling” their meals before
posting online and I can’t help but feel how
much it detracts from the whole experience.
Similarly, seeing a neon shovel-full of Andy
Warhol-hued chestnuts on Instagram will
never rival buying them from a genuine
vendor on a bitingly cold afternoon and
singeing fingertips as you walk along eating
them in the street: hot, meaty and fragrant
from a striped paper cone.
There’s also the allure of
the wide open internet itself.
The quest begins legitimately
enough when I’m searching for
a misplaced recipe. But before
you know it, I’m obsessed with
learning how to make my own
soap from violets, which leads
quite naturally to a fascinating
piece on how wearing more stripes will
allow me to acquire Parisian chic, and
then a quick look-see just to confirm that
actor Chris Hemsworth is going to be roadworthy
as James Hunt. He is, by the way,
but it’s now 12:30 in the morning….
Stories abound of traditional dusty
fruitcakes still being desperately passed
around years later but mine is not amongst
them. I’ve heard family scorn about “those
store-bought cakes” only containing traces of
cherry DNA. Perhaps these so-called inferior
cakes have not enjoyed the meaningful
relationship that mine have with Sailor
Jerry. I cannot say — but I do know that the
Facebook status of my Christmas cake tin
will be “Just Crumbs Now.”
SUE SUtherLAND WOOD is a freelance writer who
also works in the London Public Library system. She lives in
London with her teenage sons and a floating population of dogs
and cats.