Holidays and Eating Disorders
“Mike Kraft is a member of The Emilee Connection Adult Support Group. He is a former sports journalist working hard on his recovery from anorexia. He is intelligent, witty, kind, and determined and he has a beautiful story to share.”
Peanut butter and jelly. Milk and cookies. Spaghetti and meatballs. Cheese and crackers. Some things are just better together. The same could be said for me and the holidays when I was younger. I lived for the holidays as a kid. The time period from October 1st through January 1st was the best time of year in my opinion. Sure, the weather may not be at its most pleasant during that time of year in upstate New York, but it was festive. It was impossible to go into the local store and not see all the decorations. October meant Halloween, pumpkins, pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating, candy, scary movies, haunted hayrides and corn mazes. November meant Thanksgiving, turkey, football, pumpkin pie, Macy’s Day Parade and large family gatherings. December meant Christmas, decorating the Christmas tree, gift exchanges, hot chocolate, Christmas movies and even more large family gatherings. And January meant New Year’s, fireworks, champagne and New Year’s resolutions to make the upcoming year the best yet. I loved all of it. My love for the holidays can be traced to my mom. She has always had an affection for the holidays since I can remember. Every year the house would be decorated with more and more holiday decorations. For Halloween, candles and Halloween figurines would be scattered around the house and ghostly stickers would encapsulate all the windows. For Christmas, the house would be decorated from head to toe. Garland wrapped around the staircase railings. Santa and snowman decorations were in every room of the house. Our stockings would be hung over the fireplace with care. Outside, Christmas lights hung from the roof and covered the shrubs in front of the house. My mom’s love for the holidays was infectious.
Like most families, we had our annual traditions for each holiday. For Halloween, we would host an annual pumpkin carving contest among family members still living locally. There were no real prizes outside of bragging rights, but we’d have family over to our house and we’d order pizza and carve pumpkins. My grandfather would do the same exact design every year and wonder why he never cracked the top three. We’d reach out to relatives out of state to judge our pumpkins and we’d tabulate the votes to determine the top three finishers. I may have cracked the top three once or twice in the history of the contest, but it wasn’t about winning; it was about having a good time with family and enjoying the holidays. We’d also venture out to VerHulst Farm in Spencerport to experience their haunted hayride every year. It was never too scary, but you were always a little on edge that a jump scare was right around the corner. As far as tick-or-treating, I would go with my brother and some of the neighborhood kids, chaperoned by either my mom or dad. Whichever parent came with us, the other would stay home and pass out full-size candy bars to fellow trick-or-treaters. I loved getting candy but hated the amount of walking I had to do to get the sugary goodness (it’s ironic considering my eating disorder would eventually make me fear candy bars while at the same time turning me into a compulsive over-exerciser).
We’d host Thanksgiving dinner each year, always cooking more food than we needed for the amount of company we had. It usually took well over a week to get through all the leftovers. The house would already smell like Thanksgiving dinner by the time I woke up. The Macy’s Day Parade would be playing on the television while my parents were preparing their separate turkeys. My mom would always go the traditional route of cooking it in the oven, while my dad tried something different every year. One year he would cook it on the grill. Another year he’d do it in a smoker. And one year he cooked it in a garbage can. It always turned out delicious. We also had all the essential sides: mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, corn, sweet potato pie, cranberry sauce, butternut squash, banana bread, and dinner rolls. And I’d enjoy it all, not worrying about calories and carbohydrates. We’d end the holiday watching football in the family room while chowing down on a bevy of desserts.
Then there was Christmas, my personal favorite holiday. There was nothing like the lead-up to the holiday and there were plenty of winter activities and traditions we partook in when I was growing up. We’d make a day out of grabbing our Christmas tree by going out to Stokoe Farms in Scottsville, about a 30-minute drive from our house. Along with cutting down our own Christmas tree, we’d also take a wagon ride through the Christmas tree fields, play in the forts made out of straw, pet the animals in the petting zoo and sip on some hot chocolate and enjoy powdered donut holes. After a few days, we’d decorate the tree with our vast array of Christmas ornaments while listening to Christmas music. One of the many reasons I loved Christmas so much was because of all the Christmas cartoon specials there would be throughout the month of December. I was a huge fan of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network growing up and I would watch every Christmas episode they aired. I would spend hours upstairs in my parents’ bedroom watching Christmas specials. As I got older, my mom and I created more holiday traditions. Every year, we would visit the George Eastman House to see the gingerbread house display they would put on from mid-November to late December. All of the gingerbread houses were created by people in the community and submitted to the George Eastman House, where visitors could bet on them in a silent auction. Seeing the display gave us the inspiration to build our own gingerbread house display, and it’s something we’ve done every year since. And of course, we would watch our fair share of Christmas movies, our favorite being Jingle All the Way.
On Christmas morning, my brother and I would wake our parents up extra early, well before the sun rose over the horizon. Sometimes it would be too early and they would tell us to go back to bed for a couple of hours. That’s changed over the years, as now it is my parents who are responsible for waking us up when it’s time to open Christmas presents. My dad would record each Christmas morning with his camcorder, capturing all the memorable moments. After presents, my dad would make a combination of peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes and waffles before we’d adjourn to play with our new gifts until it was time to head over to our grandparents’ house for Christmas dinner with the rest of our family. There was no better day on the calendar than Christmas Day. New Year’s closed out the holiday season. It was the one day of the year I would stay up past midnight. As I got older, it was rarer for me to go to bed before midnight than after. But as a kid, staying up past midnight was a fantasy that only became reality on New Year’s Eve. My family would go over to my grandparents’ house, where there would be finger food like chips and dip, cheese, meat and crackers, and Christmas cookies. We’d have the New Year’s countdown on the television while we would play Michigan Rummy to pass the time. And when it was time, we’d watch on television as the ball would drop at Times Square in New York City.
The holidays were magical and I loved them.
But then they weren’t and I no longer did.
An eating disorder doesn’t take off work on the holidays as we do. No matter how much I wanted to enjoy the holidays during the apex of my eating disorder, it just wouldn’t allow me. Halloween wasn’t Halloween with my eating disorder. I wasn’t allowed to take even a single bite of candy. Thanksgiving wasn’t Thanksgiving with my eating disorder. I didn’t dare put mashed potatoes or stuffing on my plate, and I sure as heck didn’t even sniff the desserts. Christmas wasn’t Christmas with my eating disorder. It was no longer the most wonderful time of the year. And New Year’s wasn’t New Year’s with my eating disorder. I would be in bed by 10:30 p.m., not having either the physical or mental energy to make it to midnight.
I’ve suffered from an eating disorder since I was 14 – more than 18 years ago. In the beginning, my eating disorder didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment of the holidays. I was still a full participant in all our holiday festivities. But that changed over the last handful of years. The tighter my eating disorder’s grip on me became, the less enjoyment I got out of the holidays. Each year, I would tell myself that the next year would be better, but it never was; it was always worse.
Halloween wasn’t the same. We would still host our annual pumpkin carving contest and I would participate, but I was uncomfortable being around other people. Even if you didn’t know I had an eating disorder, you could tell something was wrong with my physical appearance. My eyes were sunken, my cheekbones were visible and my skin was a ghostly white. I was so self-conscious about my appearance that I didn’t want to do anything to draw attention to myself, and therefore I did as little conversing with others as possible. My condition severely limited my family’s ability to do any of our outdoor Halloween activities. If the nighttime temperatures dipped below 55 degrees, there was no way I would be able to stay warm enough to be outside for the few hours required to do our yearly haunted hayride regardless of how many layers I had on. My weight had gotten so low that I had little to no insulation to keep me warm. I was wearing six or seven layers whether it was 30 degrees in the winter or 90 degrees in the summer. The only activity I could do comfortably was watching scary movies, and even that was a challenge because I struggled to sit still for more than 30 minutes at a time. And Halloween candy wasn’t allowed to grace my taste buds. We would have as many as 60 full-size candy bars left over from Halloween night, and I wouldn’t allow myself to have any of it, fearing that even one bit of a candy bar would lead to unwanted weight gain.
Thanksgiving wasn’t the same. I feel confident when I say that Thanksgiving is the worst day on the calendar for people suffering from an eating disorder. While it’s supposed to be a holiday centered around the idea of being grateful for all the things we have in our lives, it’s more known as a day with a lot of food. It’s hard to escape food on Thanksgiving. The one thing I became thankful for on Thanksgiving was working retail because – until recently – my place of employment was open on Thanksgiving night and since I was part of the merchandising team, I had to be in hours before the store would open, therefore cutting my Thanksgiving short. Even when stores started closing on Thanksgiving, I would still have to be at work at 2 or 3 a.m. the following day because we would open at 5 a.m. I would volunteer to work on Thanksgiving just so I didn’t have to be around during the holiday. I’d feel guilty for not being home for the holiday, but my anxiety couldn’t handle the amount of “unsafe” food that would be on the menu and I felt embarrassed having such a small amount of food on my plate when everyone else had theirs overflowing. I could eat the turkey and some vegetables, but my eating disorder wouldn’t allow me to sample the mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, banana bread, and cranberries, all foods I used to scarf down at Thanksgiving when I was younger without a care in the world. Now, all I saw at Thanksgiving was too many carbs. And if I did allow myself just a taste of some of those “unsafe” foods, I’d spend the rest of the night thinking about it and telling myself I would have to exercise twice as hard the next day to make up for it. During the worst years of my eating disorder, the best part of Thanksgiving was when it was over.
Christmas wasn’t the same. My interest in activities waned and 2021 was the first time my mom and I didn’t construct a gingerbread house display. It wasn’t because we didn’t have time; it was because I didn’t have the energy to commit to a day-long project. Any outdoor activity was also out of the question. My small frame couldn’t handle the brutal upstate New York winters, so activities like sledding, ice skating, snowshoeing, snow tubing, or building a snowman were off the table. My addiction to exercise also cost me a lot of holiday memories over the years. There were years that my parents would go get our Christmas tree without me because I was out walking. Instead of helping my mom bake Christmas cookies or sitting down with the family to watch a Christmas movie, I would spend hours walking around the crowded mall, not looking for Christmas gifts, but instead burning off the few calories I had consumed. When family would come into town, my parents didn’t even bother asking me if I’d like to join them for any group outings they had planned because they knew I would say no. When the entire family would go out to dinner at a restaurant, I would either be at the mall walking or at home by myself. I never wanted to be around others, ashamed of my appearance, but at the same time not willing to do anything to change it. I dreaded the holidays because our house had become the primary hosting venue for family gatherings. I didn’t want people looking at me or watching me eat. But I wasn’t the only one who was uncomfortable. My mom would be the one who shielded me from the comments and concerns of others, having to answer those uneasy questions from worried relatives. While preparing Christmas dinner and getting the house presentable for guests, she was also rehearsing what she would say if someone were to ask her about my declining health. The joy I should have been feeling during the holidays was replaced by nothing but guilt.
Even Christmas morning lost its luster. My dad would continue to video record the family opening their gifts, but I always made sure to stay out of the picture. I didn’t want to see myself if we were ever to rewatch the video. I knew I looked sick and was ashamed of it. While the rest of the family opened their gifts sipping on hot chocolate, I just had a cup of hot water. I didn’t allow myself to drink liquid calories. I only drank diet soft drinks and water. I never drank milk. I never drank fruit drinks. And I never drank any beverage from a Starbucks, Dunkin’, or Tim Horton’s. I didn’t partake in Christmas breakfast. Everyone else enjoyed their fill of pancakes and waffles that my dad would make while I just sat there in silence. The candy in my stocking would also go untouched until another family member would eat it a couple of weeks later. Growing up, I lived for the holiday season. But during the height of my eating disorder, I lived for the holiday season to be over.
This is my first holiday season in recovery and while I still have a long way to go, I can confidently say that my love for the holidays has returned and my eating disorder’s power over me has declined to the degree where I am able to be a full participant in all of our yearly traditions. Having been in the hospital from Sept. 23-Oct. 24, I lost out on most of the pre-Halloween festivities (I did watch Hocus Pocus 2 while in the hospital) like the haunted hayride, but I did get to participate in our family pumpkin carving contest. While I didn’t place in the top 3 (some things never change), I felt comfortable being around others and I had no problem eating pizza for dinner. I even contributed to the menu by making a pumpkin spice dip for dessert.
I was still in my recovery infancy when Halloween arrived, so my insecurities about my frail appearance were still present. I had weight restored a bit in the hospital, but there was only so much they could do in the month I was there. But Thanksgiving was different. For the first time in years, I was excited about Thanksgiving and feeling confident. I never wanted to stand out in the crowd, but unfortunately, my appearance did exactly that. There were times when I would be walking in public and strangers would approach me and ask me if I was OK. There was one time when someone gave me their business card, as they were a licensed therapist. I never called him. But this year was different. Another four weeks of sustained weight restoration since Halloween had given me the body confidence I needed to feel comfortable around the 13 family members we hosted for Thanksgiving. With a more weight-restored physique came less anxiety around company and food and more confidence to start conversations and engage with others. The food didn’t scare me. I enjoyed turkey, stuffing, corn, green beans, dinner rolls, and sweet potatoes. More importantly, I ate it and didn’t let it bother me. For years, completing meals would be followed by feelings of guilt. I would ruminate for hours and sometimes even days after eating a meal, which I found challenging, like pizza or pasta. But this Thanksgiving, I ate my meal and went about my day. I continued to stay engaged with our company and had one of the more successful Thanksgivings in recent memory.
And now Christmas is right around the corner and I couldn’t be more excited. My mom and I returned to our gingerbread house display tradition, which is proudly displayed in our dining room and we ventured to the George Eastman House to look at the wide array of gingerbread houses displayed in their exhibit. I helped pick out a Christmas tree and decorated it with the rest of the family while Christmas music played in the background. I helped make Christmas cookies, serving as the one in charge of frosting the cookies, something I didn’t realize I would enjoy as much as I did. The holidays aren’t over at the time this blog post is published, and I still have a few activities on the docket, including a holiday concert put on by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. My family will be hosting Christmas dinner with a few members of the family before hosting a much bigger event the following day that could include up to 20 people. In the past, I would have dreaded such occasions. But now, as my confidence in myself and my appearance grows a little bit each day, I welcome it with excitement. As for New Year’s, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I won’t be making any New Year’s Resolutions because I already started mine back in September.
-Written by Mike Kraft, Adult Eating Disorder Peer Support Group Member
Email: mkraft418@gmail.com