One year over the holidays a friend of mine shared a statistic with me that really rubbed me the wrong way. “Did you know that every year as we go through the holidays, we gain an extra pound that we will never shed again? So that means in five years, we will have gained five pounds that we will never be able to get rid of?” Holidays have always been hard for diet conscious people because most of our holiday season is all about the food.

For Christmas every year, my family and I go down South for two weeks. We only get to see my husband’s side of the family about twice a year, so while we’re there, we enjoy culturally fantastic food that conjures up very familiar and warm feelings: tamales, pan dulce, mole, pizza, rice and beans, helado, cookies, fried chicken. I could go on forever. It is a smorgasbord of delicious food. I love it, I adore it, and I don’t feel guilty about it. It took a while for me to get to that point. 

There are two sets of extended family that we spend time with in the South. We also spend time with my husband's immediate family (he has four siblings). It is a blast, it is special, and it is super important to all of us. We go to the zoo, we play volleyball, we go on hikes, and I make sure to get my fix of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I don’t count calories, I don’t get to exercise for two hours every single day, and I don’t freak out about it.

A bit of background to help you understand the victory in my love for the holidays. I have always been an athlete and I ran competitively in college. It has taken me a long time to adjust to life after college, life after working full time, life after kids, and life after turning 30 (I’m 34). It is a balancing act. I schedule in workouts, time with God, pick-ups, drop offs, meals, snacks, so when I go down South for the holidays, I simply take a break. I bring my running clothes, and I run most days, but some days I sit on my in-laws’ couch and watch Netflix with my sister-in-law. I eat three conchas (the best kind of pan dulce) for breakfast and drink a vanilla peppermint latte from Coffee Bean. I used to force myself to work out every day and got discouraged with myself if I ate dinner and then went to Grandma’s and ate more dinner, and had a tamale for dessert. But I constantly reminded myself: this is once a year, this is time with family, and this is enjoying the amazing food God created for me to eat. 

This is sitting around the table laughing uncontrollably as we tell jokes and spread masa and meat over cornhusks. This is the easy, hilarious banter between my husband and his siblings as we drink iced coffees and wait for our turn to play volleyball. This is fighting over the best gummy bears that my father-in-law gets in his stocking every year. This is the conversation as we eat pizza and plan for a movie night with my kids and their aunts and uncles. This is teasing my sister in law when she doesn’t bring the good donuts from the bakery near her house for Christmas breakfast. This is meeting up with my husband’s high school friends over beers, and then walking in the rain to the pizza place where they hung out in high school. This is ordering and eating wings and fries and pizzas at 10pm and laughing at things that happened 15 years ago. 

Food is the core of these memories and feelings…and that is ok.  From Ellyn Satter: “Normal eating is sometimes giving yourself permission to eat because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just because it feels good.” This is where the love is built, and expanded, and made stronger. For lack of better words, this is the bread and butter of family relationships. I would never ruin these moments for a diet. I could say no thank you, but why? 

Jesus also had these moments.  He ate with tax collectors, he sat with his friends around a table before he was lead to the cross, he turned water into wine at a hopping party, and he fed the 5,000 when nobody wanted to go home from his sermon. When Zaccheus asked Jesus to come to his home and dine with him, Jesus went immediately. He didn’t ask if the meal would be keto friendly! Jesus knew that food was a form of love. Jesus knew that eating with people opened their hearts and feeding people showed them that he cared for them. Jesus knew that he could talk to them and share with them without food, but he also knew that food would connect them.

So this holiday season, as you sit around a table with your family, think about the memories you are making, the time it took Grandma to prepare it, and the special treats that were made for specific people. Don’t think of the calories, the hours of exercise you need to get in that day, or the number of pounds you might carry into next year. Think of the conversations you’ll have, the intentional movements of your body as you play with your nieces and nephews, and the amount of love you’ll have to carry you through next year. Think of Jesus, who ate, reclined, and spoke with his people, the people he loved, and know that you’re in good company around the table.

Want more?

Food Freedom Bible Study is now available for individuals and Registered Dietitians who want to earn CEU’s. It’s a simple, online, gospel-centered program for breaking the bondage of food, exercise and body issues.