“You’d be amazed how smashed you can get off eggnog when you’re tweaking on a week’s worth of sugar.”
~American dentists
Christmas is just around the corner, which means a handful of you get to take advantage of your opportunity to be a massive asshole by putting coal in your kid’s stocking just to see the look on the little bastard’s face. Really dude? You’re going that route? You think that shit’s funny? How do you even procure a hunk of coal to do that? You suck, and your kids are going to put you in one of the cheapest homes in town when your mind starts to go. But for the rest of you, Christmas is a time for friends, family, and alcohol but we said that one two times already.
But Christmas is more than just about presents and liquor. It’s about tradition. And obesity. Both of which can be seen as we investigate…
America’s Greatest Holiday Candy Traditions
Don’t worry, not all of them will look like penises. This one will, though.
While Halloween is universally recognized as the best chance to get candy from strangers that you never earned, Christmastime is better for unique, inventive treats, because a combination of shorter days and colder nights as well as the incessant demand of children during Winter Break requires a passive aggressive outlet of delicious creations that’ll give those damn kids the worst kinds of diabetes later on in life.
So, while there are literally hundreds of ways to get that healthy sugar buzz throughout the season, we’re going to pick and choose a few favorites of ours that remind us of Christmas, caroling, and cavities.
CANDY CANES
Candy Canes have been around since the 17th century, when some German guy wanted to bribe kids into going to church. And really, as far as candies go, these aren’t the best or most aesthetically pleasing. Yes, you can hang them on a Christmas tree, which is a bonus, and peppermint is pretty good, but this is a widely impractical type of candy. Any adult trying to eat a candy cane is going to need to wash their hands, because it is impossible to eat a whole one without getting sticky fingers. If adults can’t pull of clean candy cane consumption, why are we giving them to kids? It’s almost like the person who invented the candy cane had a very specific dislike of young parents who own luxury cars that have leather interiors. In fact, the German term for Candy Cane is “Zuckerstange” which means “What kind of asshole gives his 4 year old kid candy and has him drive in the back seat of his Porsche?” According to Urban Dictionary, of course, “German Candy Cane” is a pretty gross sexual act that no no don’t click that link you won’t like what you…you already clicked it, didn’t you? Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Also, apropos of nothing, here is a an article about a guy stealing a Porsche filled with candy canes.
GINGERBREAD COOKIES
Gingerbread has been known since at least the 10th century, and gingerbread shaped as people have been around at the very least since Queen Elizabeth I’s time. But guess who decided to make the world’s largest Gingerbread cookie? USA! US…holy shit, 26 feet? That’s insane! We didn’t think it was possible to be scared of a Gingerbread man (despite the best efforts of the classic Gary Busey vehicle, motorcycle crash The Gingerdead Man) but the concept of a 26 foot tall Gingerbread cookie actively frightens us. Is it because our staff members have a tendency to get drunk and stumble into things and knock them over, and while “Crushed by the world’s largest Gingerbread man while smashed on Listerine” looks great on a tombstone, we’re not honestly ready to go that way. There’s new types of whiskey being distilled every day.
Speaking of whiskey…
EGGNOG
Eggnog is something that seems like it was invented by someone with a unique sense of vengeance whose ex-wife happened to be a lactose-intolerant teetotaler. Since the actual origin of eggnog (It either originated in England or was derived from a medieval European hot-milk-based beverage, and was popular among the aristocracy before it came over to America in the 18th century) are far more boring, we’re going to pretend that it totally was invented by someone trying to get back at his ex-wives, and we’ll offer you the totally factual internal monologue of this totally fictional person.
“Oh yeah? I’ll show you who drinks too much and never sees a project through to the end. I’ve got cream, I’ve got milk, I’ve got sugar, and I’ve got eggs, and I’m gonna put these all together and turn them into a vapor, so that no matter where you go you’ll have lactose problems. Yeah. First I’m gonna get nice and ripped on whiskey though.”
*two hours/most of a bottle of whiskey pass*
“Eh, I’ll just pour the rest of the whiskey and drink it instead. Hey that’s actually pretty good!”
Eggnog is mixed with whiskey, rum, or brandy, depending on if you’re an American, a college student, or occasionally wear a monocle. While it’s comforting and reminds us all of the holidays, it’s not by traditional definitions “Good.” It makes you nostalgic, and you’re excited for the brief periods where you can consume it, but if it was available all year you’d lose interest. It’s basically the McRib of holiday beverages.
RUM CAKE
The rum cake came to us from the Caribbean, where the traditional recipes take dried fruit and soak them in rum for three months before making a cake. Three months! The only time a writer on the AFFotD staff has had any amount of alcohol last for three months, he was in an alcohol-related coma. And even then, there was a point halfway through where he woke up for 5 minutes and staggered over to drank half the bottle before passing out again.
Of course, the real reason why we love rum cake is that you can absolutely get ripped off rum cake. Contrary to popular opinion, alcohol doesn’t completely burn off when you cook it. So that means that if you eat enough rum cake, you’ll get drunk and fat at the same time. And we don’t mean to get sappy here, but that’s just part of the reason why we love this damn country.
And, don’t take this the wrong way, but if your family had a rum cake, there’s always a chance that your brother’s toddler will happen to eat some and get drunk. We’re not saying that a drunken toddler will be hilarious, but that’s just because we don’t want to put ourselves on any watch lists.
FIGGY PUDDING
To be honest we don’t give much of a shit about Figgy Pudding. We just know it’s in that one Christmas song, and we think it’s hilarious that people were so bad at naming things back in the day.
But no matter what Holiday Treat you decide to tickle your insulin levels with, make sure to down it with a full glass of Christmas Cheer. Christmas Cheer of course being a combination of moonshine and cough syrup we recently invented.
America Fun Fact of the Day 