Oh happy day! Halloo! Hallay!
Raise a shout and cry hooray!
Sing a song of joyful cheer!
The season’s come! The nog is here!
I hope you’ll pardon my waxing poetic, but the very thought of finding the grocery shelves fully nogged once more at this time of year makes me go all iambic.
Because the best part of the season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is the long-awaited arrival of the nog!
I don’t have to tell you that it’s egg nog I’m talking about, do I? That would be redundant. You won’t confuse it with fish nog, or pork nog, or gluten-free kale nog, or any of those other nogs on the shelves, right?
That’s because the only nog that ever makes it to the big leagues starts with a quick, clucky drop out of the north end of a southbound chicken.
Egg nog. Yum-m-m-m-m.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why nog is only on the shelves for a couple months at the end of the year. Or, for that matter, what the Nog-lords do for the rest of the year once they fold up their tents and blow town right after New Year’s. Maybe they become Peeps-lords during the Easter season, or Candycorn-lords at Halloween. They must be doing something to keep the lights on in their Fortress of Tastytude.
But none of those off-season ventures matter to me, because I would be a yearlong nogger if they would let me. I’d even risk an eye-poke by flying a little flag in my nog-flagon on Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day.
Because nothing beats the nog.
It’s been that way for me all my life, even during those long winters of my high school years, when I was on the wrestling team and had to skinny down to nothing but bone, sinew, and teenage angst to make weight. Food of any tasty sort was out of the question—especially a food as laden with sweet, rich calories and delectable milkfat as a sumptuous mug of nog.
I couldn’t let Mom pour me even a single serving, because there’s no way I could have limited myself to only one mug. Mom knew it too: If she’d given a mug of luscious nog to a starving teenager trained in hand-to-hand combat, she’d be taking her life in her hands by asking for it back without refilling it.
But they didn’t have low-fat nog in those days, so it was “No, thanks” for me when the Nog-lords came to town, at least until I could make weight.
My answer was to adopt the Gandhi diet, denying myself food of any kind until the scales said I could steal a cup of nog or two without having to be blubber-benched. I’m sure Gandhi also had good reasons to skip his meals. Some of them were probably almost as good as needing to make weight before the nog-season was over.
But Mom didn’t like the idea of her teenage son embarking on a full-blown Indian ascetic starvation diet, so she came to the rescue. Rather than declaring the house to be a nog-free zone to keep me from temptation, or locking up the fridge at night to keep me from breaking training, she bought normal nog for the rest of the family and mixed up her own low-cal version of nog for me to drink at mealtime.
I’m not exactly sure what was in it—a raw egg or two, and plenty of cinnamon and nutmeg and other noggish stuff. Maybe a touch of low-fat milk. She left out the sugar, of course, but for a starving nog-less child, it was a banquet. I would relish it with small sips at dinnertime as the rest of the family ate whatever it was that normal family members ate who didn’t have to worry about standing naked on a scale in front of a wrestling coach the next morning.
Fortunately, my high school wrestling career lasted a bit less than three years, thanks to a dislocated shoulder. And so, from senior year on into college, my winter seasons were devoted to indoor track, which had only three rules: Run fast, turn left, then nog to your heart’s content.
I was happy to leave the fasting to Gandhi.
It has been a noggy love affair for me in November and December ever since, broken only by those sad months when the Nog-lords turn their talents to other ventures.
But maybe, in the big picture, it’s better that they don’t crank out the nog year-round.
Because according to the Internet (which knows all things and never lies), Gandhi effected social change through his lifetime with a total of 17 hunger strikes—only one of which took place in December, that sweet noglicious month of the year.
That fast lasted only one day.
The Internet doesn’t explain why his only December fast was shorter than the average cricket match, but I suspect that even the mahatma lacked the will power to say no to a thick, creamy, festive mug of nog.
So, as I say, maybe it’s best that nog is just a seasonal indulgence. I guess there’s no telling what course history might have taken if the Nog-lords kept working every day of the year.
