Booze/bites: Why at Christmas?

Christmas is the time where everyone eats and drinks too much. That's what everyone says, right?

"Hey, don't drink or eat too much. It's not good for your health"

Why for one week of the year are we saying eating and drinking a lot is perfectly acceptable?

Why this week is it perfectly acceptable to get up and have an alcoholic beverage with your breakfast but it isn't any other time of the year?

Why this week is it perfectly acceptable to eat so much disgustingly fatty food that your stomach almost pops?

Why am I judged on any day not in December that I'm not working because I've posted online that I'm having a beer with my 20 rasher bacon sandwich?

Why is it only acceptable during the Christmas period?

Answers on a postcard please.

Nate
http://www.twitter.com/NateDawg27
http://www.facebook.com/BoozeBeatsBites

Comments

  1. As an obese American, with a hereditary background of English, German and Scots-Irish, i feel that EVERY meal should be one of gluttony. One should drink heavily before noon at LEAST once a week, and not on a weekend, either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not saying EVERY meal... just y'know; why just at this particular point of the year?

      I know you're only taking the piss mate but why is eating and drinking unhealthily at just one point in the year good? Surely it's healthier to overindulge a few times a year?

      Delete
  2. surely, you can appreciate the roots of the festivities. The fact that people would have been poorer and it would have been am indulgence that would have lasted one day. In the past 20 years however, it has become more acceptable to over indulge on a more frequent basis. These foods are cheeper, have more preservatives and last longer. Drinking to excess is a scourge of our generation, you just need to read the weekly court files to see that. Luckily a few extra chocolate bars are easily worked off, drinking a bottle of Vodka will take a lot longer to fix.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes but why does it take a specific week for people to not feel guilty about overindulging? Why can't they just say in the middle of February "fuck it, I fancy getting wasted and eating a shitload"?

      Delete
  3. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the week-long celebration.

    The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week.

    At the festival’s conclusion on December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent person.

    In addition to human sacrifice, the ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) mentions the following customs as he described the festival’s observance in his time:

    -widespread intoxication;
    -going from house to house while singing naked;
    -rape and other sexual license
    -consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

    In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity, large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

    TL;DR: Romans were pretty badass/awful. Christian leaders let a gluttonous holiday slide as long as it got people believing in their religion. Tradition still stands today and few question it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers for the info and comment. Apologies but I had to approve it. Had a bad troll problem so it has to be like this!

      So basically, it's a generational thing. I still don't quite get it. Why don't people do a lot of other things that happened back then? At the same time, why can't people think for themselves?

      Delete
  4. Why?

    Because we are all sheep & lack the guts to go against the grain. Even as a committed non-conformist I still feel obliged to conform.

    Why?

    Because big business wants us to pig out. Money makes christmas.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well if it makes you feel any better, squire I've not really done the gratuitous eating and drinking thing this year. My apathy towards Christmas has been sky high! Just couldn't be arsed. It's just another Hallmark holiday now...or is it Moonpig these days? ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Too tired from eating and drinking too much the rest of the yeah, huh? :-P

      Delete

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