Valentine’s Day has just passed and I’ve heard the usual
complaints about the made-up Hallmark holiday. This on the heels of people
grumbling about the consumer driven Christmas season. But not me. My grievance
reaches all the way back to Halloween and the sheer amount of chocolate I am
forced to eat for six months out of the year. (And by forced to eat, I mean eat.)
I stopped at the grocery store for a few things today and as soon as I push past the customer service desk, my cart almost has a head-on with a display of Easter candy. I sigh deeply and reverse, taking the long way around to the produce section. I’m not about to walk directly past the display where a bag or two could fall into my cart. I just recently vanquished the last of the red and green Christmas m&m’s from our house (and by vanquished, I mean ate) so I’m not about to replace them with pastel ones. Not yet anyway.
Chocolate stalks me from October through April. It starts with going to BJ’s to buy our Halloween candy where you can’t buy less than the bulk bag of 135 fun-size bars. Couple that with the measly fifteen trick or treaters who may come to our door, and that’s 120 leftover promises of fun to be eaten in the month of November. Sure, there’s a short respite for Thanksgiving pie eating, but by month's end, I can sense a full-on ambush by Christmas chocolates.
We tend to get a lot of sweets from our generous neighbors, so there’s no reason for me to buy the Ghiradelli peppermint bark…except that it would be Scrooge-like not to. The Christmas colored m&m’s are required for decorating sugar cookies for my son’s teachers. The surplus of the 42 oz. mega-bag is merely the consequence of my charitable baking.
Thus, we have chocolate-filled holiday bowls all around the house during the month of December. This promptly takes on a gluttonous aura before the shine of the new year wears off. Having that much chocolate in the house when it’s just plain ole’ January diminishes the chocolate haze I’ve been living in. By the middle of the month, I’ve convinced myself I need to get rid of it. (And by get rid of it, I mean eat it.) By the first of February, the house is finally chocolate-free.
This lasts a whole week, because Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and red boxed chocolates are everywhere. I find myself having to walk through Candy Land just to pick up a prescription at CVS. Just walk through the aisle, I tell myself. But it’s not the same red and green m&m’s I’ve been eating since Christmas. Now they are pink and red. How does one pass up an entirely new species of m&m’s? What's the use anyway? I still have to buy my son some Valentine’s chocolates and then follow that up by being a good mother and not letting him consume too much sugar. Every mama bear will sacrifice for her child. (And by sacrifice, I mean eat his chocolate).
Which leads me to today, four days after Valentine’s Day, when I almost collide with the display of Easter candy. Chocolate is relentless. It changes its color with each holiday. It stakes its claim months before your little black dress is too tight to wear to the office Christmas party. It laughs in the face of your half-hearted New Year’s resolution. Just when I’ve made a pact with myself to no longer succumb to Mars and Hershey, out comes chocolate’s cleanup hitter, Cadbury. This is when I realize that the fun-size bars of a distant Halloween were just a warm up to the grand finale: Cadbury’s giant chocolate bunny.
By the time we fully thaw out here in New England, the last of the solid bunny ears have been gnawed, digested, and commemorated on my hips. The chocolate laden holidays are finally over. Lucky for me, it’s just in time to think about bathing suit season…and chocolate’s deliciously nasty cousin, ice cream.
