The Road Home is Paved With Fruitcakes

It's Christmastime. A time for giving, a time for family, a time to reflect on the months behind us and look forward to the months ahead. But most of all, it's a time to eat weird, gelatinous grandma food. Year after year I have struggled to understand how the type of food every cell in my body begs me not to put in my mouth has come to be a time honored tip of the hat to Jesus. I think I may have finally stumbled onto a likely hypothesis:

One day, not so very long ago, everyone over the age of 70 was whisked away together to some sort of magical jellyfish planet where they lived for ten years. Everything was all colorful and special and glazed there. It was the best time of their lives. But alas, as we humans tend to do, they overindulged in the bounty of dense, rubbery foods the elderly love so much not to have to chew. The Jellyfish people grew increasingly resentful as their food supplies dwindled. Then one day, without so much as a warning, the old people were violently ripped from their gummy paradise and exiled back to Earth with nothing to eat but Earth food.

Cold, shivering and devoid of joy, they hastily pieced together a menu consisting of wobbly cakes molded into shapes, unnaturally pigmented fruits contained within bricks of sickly sweet bread, and strange, translucent gravies. Indisputably disturbing as each of these concoctions are, these pale comparisons to the bountiful fruits of a superior planet are all these poor refugees can muster up to pay homage to a golden age. A better age. Though not a one of these elderly folk dare speak of this time for fear of being dismissed as batshit crazy, they toil away each Christmas to bring these dishes to our tables and share a small fraction of unknowable bliss with us, their loved ones.

It is a mourning, a celebration, a prayer. I think these people hope to be returned to what they see as their home and who would want to deny them that? This is why you eat their food. Because even though you know it is fucking disgusting, you love your grandma and want her to get to Jelly Heaven. Merry Christmas, everyone! Please pass the fruity rum cake balls with dates and candied pineapples. And a shot of something to wash that shit down because it's not going down on it's own!