It’s a week after Thanksgiving and I am still exhausted.  Food fatigue. Host-traumatic stress syndrome. Call it what you want. I don’t think I’ll be ready for Christmas. Thanksgiving has done me in. I am out.of.shape. That’s right, holiday shape. I need a regiment so I can stand and stir for hours, bend and scoop up drops from the floor, and a little lift and stretch to reach those holiday dishes on the top shelves. Forget “Hot Yoga”, enroll in Hot Holiday Hosting. That’s a program I would sign up for. You have to be in special shape for Christmas. It’s not just one day, but Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There are presents and wrapping involved. Pretend hugs of love and cookies to dispense. It’s the hardest holiday of all. You also have to decorate and clean. Thanksgiving is a few pumpkins, cornhusks, and a handful of acorns tossed on the table. For Christmas, there is not one inch of your house that goes undecorated. You’ve got mantles to adorn, stockings to hang, stairs to flourish with fauna, and Christmas trees to decorate in yearly themes and windows to light, in place of the usual closed curtain sequestering.  And then….we’re back to cooking. We cook our traditional foods and try to introduce something new with great aplomb. It’s the holiday where traditions and past memories dim the perplexities of today. And let’s not talk about the lit inflatable yard waste. Nothing says CHRISTMAS like an inflated Snoopy. Let’s not talk about it!  Stick a fork in me. I think I’m done!