This annual tradition had grown from a gathering of my parents and their friends and their children, to families with their children’s “significant others,” and now grandchildren, as well. This gathering centered around food, and my mother’s food was famous. (One year a young adult guest asked my mother for a “doggie bag.” The rest of the guests, while not agreeing as to the propriety of the request, agreed wholeheartedly to the sentiment.) Home baked Christmas cookies, including “seven-layer bars” (Just picture seven of the most delicious and fattening ingredients piled up and cut into bars.), spiral cut ham and turkey for finger sandwiches, some of the most exquisite appetizers, including my very favorites – mayonnaise and parmesan cheese spread over bread and broiled until golden brown (Nope, no calories there.) – all these delights, not to mention the colorful ginger-ale-rainbow-sherbet punch, made the idea of surviving the evening binge-free seem like an impossibility. I prayed for God’s help but anticipated an evening of either abject failure or being miserable with deprivation as I watched everyone else eating what I wanted to stuff myself with.