This is a difficult time of year for those of us who try to watch what we eat. I have gained weight just from standing next to the Post-Gazette Food section, with its cookie recipes and mouth-watering photos and ads for beer distributors.

Any discussion of holiday beer makes me both thirsty and hungry, because many seasonal beers sound more like cookies. KringleJingle Ginger Honey Raisin Nutmeggnog Fruiten Ale should be served iced, and I don't mean extremely cold.

Most of the rest of the year, it's not that difficult to avoid overindulgence in the sugary, the gravy-soaked and fatty, the creamy and caramelized. You train yourself to turn your head and walk on -- hold your nose past the bakery, avert your gaze from the dip. Your reward is being able to zip your pants, and that has to be enough.

And then, Thanksgiving happens. Thanksgiving, despite being a holiday centered around eating until stuffing leaks out your tear ducts, is not that tough for me. To be honest, I'm not that crazy about the standard Thanksgiving foods. I don't dislike them, but I am not lying awake nights jonesing for sweet potatoes or fantasizing about green bean casserole. Cranberry sauce, canned or homemade, doesn't seduce me. Turkey fails to tempt (chicken on steroids -- big deal).

A good pumpkin pie demands some attention, but so few are really good, and a sliver is usually enough.

But Christmas ... oh, that is exquisite dietary torture.

The problem is that Thanksgiving came to us from the Pilgrims, who were not known for their hedonism. They were just happy to be alive for the first Thanksgiving, and they were grateful to eat whatever they and the Indians could pull together: corn, fish, fowl, root vegetables, bread. There weren't any tiny marshmallows at the first Thanksgiving, nor cocoa, nor canned mushroom soup and fried onions. Cool Whip had to be churned by hand.

Despite the bells and whistles added over time, the dinner still echoes a simply cooked meal for people with few resources and no celebrity chefs.

Christmas, on the other hand, has included an over-the-top, treat-laden feed since at least the Middle Ages, when kings and lords would roast whole unicorns over the wood of money trees, with sugared pomegranates and kumquats and a sauce made from the tears of saints.

OK, not exactly, but close. There was a lot of wine, a lot of roasted meat and some kind of Nativity scene made out of dough or marzipan. The peasants in their hovels may have shared a bowl of gruel sprinkled with sleet, but the castle must have actually smelled good for once.

We seem to get most of our ideas about Christmas dining from the Victorians in general and Charles Dickens in particular. Like many people who grew up poor and often hungry, he had a keen appreciation for a good feast -- just savor the descriptions from "A Christmas Carol." We don't even know what half the food is anymore, but it all sounds absolutely luscious.

Can your office party compare to Fezziwig's?

"There was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer."

Cold Roast and Cold Boiled What I'm not sure, but you can bet they were massive slabs of meat. Mince pies have had a rather disturbing evolution; they used to be small and contain cut-up meat seasoned with spices and bits of fruit, but over time the meat disappeared, the pies got bigger and the spices, fruit and nuts took over. Real mince pies still contain suet. Which is raw beef fat. I prefer a fake mince pie.

Negus I had to look up, and it was worth it: It's a drink with port, claret, burgundy, brandy, water, lemon, nutmeg and sugar, served hot. Wow.

The Victorian Christmas pudding is almost more like a fruitcake steamed in a cloth bag. Sometimes called plum pudding, it contains no plums and is supposed to age all through Advent. Before you bring it to the table, you dig a little hole in the top, fill it with brandy and set it on fire. No wonder the Cratchit children were so excited.

Poultry, meats, sausages, pies, oysters, chestnuts, fruits, cakes, wines and punches. Now we know why rich businessmen like Scrooge were so cranky.

Bah! Heartburn!