Unsavory Foods of Christmas Past

If you ask me, only maniacs like Ali Baba and Lawrence of Arabia eat dates, yet for some reason my parents would regularly purchase a box of these disgusting, beetley brown "fruits" every Christmas. As I recall, 'they" were packaged in a balsa wood box featuring an illustration of an emaciated and sorry-looking camel. Festive fare? Yes, if you've decorated your toilet bowl with tinsel and candy canes. The annual appearance of small, rhomboid-shaped lumps of multicolored marzipan was another affront to my seasonal dignity. I've always thought that marzipan possesses similar Yuletide qualities to those vibrant red berries that grow on holly branches: both are cheerfully colorful, both are probably poisonous and will make you violently ill.
There was one Christmas I remember, in particular. It must have been the winter of '82. The snows were especially heavy that year, and so, equipped with an enormous sack of chestnuts, I camped out beside a raging fire that I had purposefully kindled in my portable brazier. After commandeering a Salvation Army choir that had been caroling on the street corner, and wrapping myself safely and securely in an old Eskimo blanket, I began the time honored process of roasting the chestnuts on the open fire. I'd probably only roasted about two or three before I felt a sharp pain in my nose. It was then that I noticed Jack Frost hovering several inches in front of my face, his vicious fangs dripping with fresh blood. Needless to say, I didn't wish that brute "Merry Christmas" at any time at all during his disgraceful attack on my person, nor were seasonal greetings of any kind conveyed to him in anyway whatsoever.
So there you have it: the Unsavory Foods of Christmas Past. I tell you, that's why these days I just make do with a large goose stuffed with caviar which I wash down with a bottle of port and call it a day.

Comments

[menace]

I've never liked dates ever since a poisoned date killed Indiana Jones's quisling monkey, not that I liked them before that.

[stephenesque]

Yes. Anyone who claims that he likes dates is undoubtedly hiding the fact that he is actually suffering from bowel problems.