DECEMBER 20, 2008

When I read stories by well-intentioned nutrition experts on ways to avoid the culinary traps of the season, I come away thinking that they’ve missed the point. The holidays aren’t about avoiding food. They’re about integrating food - and food memories - into the celebration.

If you’re lucky, you’ve had some special people pass through your life. Times when life was particularly sweet. And because the human mind is so fantastically wired, simple things like baking shortbread, or sipping a single-malt scotch, can kindle images of these people and times.

Indeed, the people who return to us in spirit this month are, perhaps, the dearest gift of the season. It’s why tradition is so essential to the celebration.

That means you can’t reduce the butter in Grandma Skinner’s shortbread. Or the cream in Uncle Henry’s egg nog. Or do anything that would alter the character of any treasured family recipe. Because when you’re hankering for Uncle John’s fudge, it’s got to be the real deal since you’re conjuring golden times in the kitchen and around the dinner table when life-long bonds were formed.

Which is why I strongly encourage you to remember that food and wine over the next few weeks should be designed to pull friends together, not keep them fretting over which fork or goblet to use. Then apply this one important rule for hosting that I learned from my mother: The food is never more important than the people eating it.

But I do understand. We’re entering into that time when good intentions are sort of hard to follow through on. Wishing we could capture the Christmas spirit is one thing. But realistically speaking, when opportunities come along, most of us are approaching total meltdown. So try to remember that the magic, hope, and joy of the season is all around us. We just need to slow down, listen, and look. Then set some time aside to break bread with the folks you really care about, at a time of year when we’re all buoyed with the feeling that anything is possible.