Holiday Season Over, Diet Season Begins

            Our family Christmas tree now rests by our mailbox at the edge of the driveway.  Later this week it will be picked up by the city sanitation crew and given an honorable burial.

            The lights and other Christmas ornaments are in boxes out in the storage room until next Thanksgiving.

            There are no more Christmas cards in the mail.  Instead, there are credit card bills.

            No doubt about it, the holiday season is officially over.  Now it’s on to the diet season.

            Each December I eat my way through the holidays as if I were a bear preparing for hibernation.  By January 1st, both my waistline and my credit line have reached their limits.

            Apparently I’m not the only middle-aged guy in America who begins each January looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy.  January 1st officially marks the beginning of diet season across the length and girth of the nation.

            If you don’t believe me, grab the remote and turn on your television.  You’ll see non-stop commercials for diet plans and exercise equipment.

            It’s move over, Santa Claus!  Make way for Richard Simmons!

            Last month we were all dreaming of a white Christmas.  Now we are dreaming of washboard abs.

            Last month it was turkey and dressing and eggnog.  This month it is lettuce and carrots and ultra-skinny-fast juice!

            This time last month we were ordering Christmas gifts such as a weed-eater for Uncle Earl and a dust-buster for Aunt Wanda.  But now, we are calling toll-free numbers so that we can order the official Suzanna Sommers tummy-flattening machine.  With just three easy payments and five minutes a day, those love handles will be gone by Valentine’s Day.

            I plan to spend the next few months on the ultra-skinny-fast diet, and I will also spend just a few easy minutes each day rolling around my bedroom floor in my official Suzanne Sommers Ab-roller tummy-flattener.

            I’ll also spend a few other easy minutes each night jumping around in front of my DVD player as I do the “Richard Simmons-Oprah Winfrey Buns of Steel Video Workout!”

            By next Thanksgiving, you won’t even recognize me.  I’ll be one lean, mean, partyin’ machine!  I’ll be 20 pounds lighter thanks to the ultra-skinny-fast juice diet!  I’ll have steely buns and a set of washboard abs that will make you and all my other pudgy friends turn lettuce-green with envy.

            And when that happens, I’m going to celebrate.  That’s right.  I’ll spend next December just like I did this past December, eating every bit of fattening food I can get my lean, mean hands on.