The Downward Sugar Spiral

'Tis the season to lose one's willpower. That, combined with the increasingly visible nature of sweets has conspired to let our standards slide just a bit. Today, for instance, we stopped in the candy aisle and turned to the right, for once, our back to the cereal. (OK, maybe once or twice I've grabbed a bag of dark chocolate miniatures while Ella wasn't looking, but she was younger and more easily duped.) Today we were trolling for decorations for our gingerbread house-to-be. (Which, constructed before, remains a perfect beacon of holiday cheer in our minds until the end result is before us.)

I let Ella choose Skittles, and I added licorice squares and those fruit rings things in different colors with the grainy sugar coating.

Naturally, she wanted one.

I gave her a white fruit ring thing with the grainy sugar coating, because my pre-lunch, low blood sugar willpower was also low.

After lunch, she reminded me that it is a new day, and thus time to open Day Six on the advent calendar that her Grammy gave her. Luckily, it is a minute piece of chocolate. Double luck, nap was not hugely delayed.

My mother, I remember, used to try to give us carob. We though carob was gross.

Hopefully, in small doses, we'll survive the holiday candy season. Now, onslaught of commercialism, that's a topic for another day.