Now the challenge is waiting for tonight's Christmas Eve meal without coming down with starvation induced insanity.

I'm spending Christmas with my friend's family. They're a lively bunch. The walls and end tables are cluttered with foreign decorations. Dradles and Manorrahs mixed with Christmas Nativity scenes and wreaths. This morning started with a big breakfast and now we wait for the big meal tonight. The long dining room table is set with decorated plates and crystal glasses, and each place bears the name of the person who will be sitting there. My name is on a little white card that is clenched in the jaws of a small nutrcracker man.

This is actually the first Christmas of two for me. I leave late tonight to drive about two hours to someone else's house for a day of Christmas. Instead of Christmas just being on the 25th this year, it's on the 24th and 25th. Two times the food, and two times the size of my gut.

200 lb. here I come.