If you have “The Christmas Blahs,” try and raise your hand. I know; it’s hard. The hand has taken on a life of its own, lifting chocolates, cookies, chips, nuts and other Christmas goodies. Yes, my friend, the hand is to blame. It’s not your fault. The only thing you can do is to let it have its way until every last sugary bit is gone.

The hand does not care for kale or spinach; indeed it automatically moves away from the dreaded vegetable. Christmas kale is no pleasure at all, now is it?

We must let the hand do its thing until there are no more goodies left for it to lift into your mouth. The mouth, of course, is innocent. It just chews what the hand gives it. It has been known to eat all sorts of impossible things like cookies decorated with what taste like steel balls.

If you think I don’t like Christmas, you are wrong, for Christmas lets the hand feed me anything it likes. You may be wondering what the other hand is doing; I don’t know exactly, but I am sure it’s not innocent.

Magazines feature sweet recipes that the hand pages through until it finds a winner. Then it gets out a large bowl, dumps sugar in and throws it in the oven. At my house there are humpbacked elves and misshaped stars and even the sacrilege of Santa with scoliosis.

I look in the mirror and my hand guiltily darts behind my back so as not to be seen. It is culpable, this greedy little hand. Feel no sympathy for it.

I wish you a prosperous New Year; I would shake on that, but the hand is deep into rum balls and is feeling rather tipsy.

Vicki Woodyard