Imagine if you will, sweet, creamy, scrumptious, chocolate melting in your mouth and filling your every sense with happiness, contentment and joy.
Since the beginning of time chocolate has been the temptation of the gods. My history may not be very accurate, but since the beginning of my time, it has been my temptation.
My family celebrated Christmas with chocolate. Thank you, Jesus, for bringing chocolate into our home on your birthday.
In the center of the dining table, my mother’s crystal, lazy-Susan was brimming with chocolate kisses. Chocolate flowed from and overflowed the candy dishes. When you picture this, don’t see it from the adult view from above. Look at the candy dish as a child would with your nose level with the table. The dish sparkles and shines and holds a delightful treasure.
With the help of huge chairs, I reached and grabbed and reached and grabbed until my hand was slapped for taking too much, or I felt really sick from eating so much chocolate.
Long after I left home and had my own children, Christmas always included Hershey kisses. Like the child I am, I couldn’t properly execute my Christmas duties without the ever-present Hershey Kisses.
They could have silver wrapping or red and green, it didn’t matter, as long as they were filled with chocolate.
Every present I wrapped, was accompanied by a chocolate kiss. My family always wondered why they got so many presents. Duh! If they only got a few gifts, I would only eat a few kisses!
Then, while sitting under the tree on Christmas morning…yes, you guessed it–each gift had to be UN-wrapped with a kiss. By the time Christmas was over I had the same funny tummy ache that I had as a kid.
Sadly, this year I grew up.
How do I know this? I know, because this year, I wrapped ALL my gifts and DID NOT eat one kiss.
Once, while in the grocery store, I picked up a few packages of kisses, thinking I wanted them, but I put them back. It wasn’t the child in me who put them back. My hand just did it by itself! I would NEVER have put them back before. (If anything I hid more packages than most people saw.)
There are NO kisses in the house and there are only two days until Christmas.
Is growing up my Christmas present? That is as bad as coal–maybe worse–you get coal only once, but now I will be grown up, forever.
Is There Any Hope?
Maybe I’m not really growing up. Maybe my tastes are maturing? No, that means growing up. They are expanding, or maybe evolving, but I won’t accept that they are maturing.
A few days ago, after all the gifts were wrapped, I walked past the bulk candy display in the grocery store. 
The chocolate covered peanuts called my name. My whole name–not just Virginia. I swear the peanuts were shouting so loud, that I thought the whole store could hear them.
I succumbed to their pressure!
I bought a bag. I managed to dump only a little in the bag, but, unfortunately, those were eaten far too quickly.
Yesterday, I went back.
Again, the peanuts were screaming my name, so I pulled on the lever.
NOTHING CAME OUT!
A kind lady–she said her name was Claus–saw my utter disappointment and slammed the container with her hand a few times, and then hundreds of peanuts filled my bag– over three pounds worth.
You can’t put bulk candy back, so I had no choice, I HAD to buy it.
Yes, I feel better.
With that kind of behavior, it is obvious that I can’t be growing up.
It is merely that my tastes are developing and diverging!
