Any disciplined eating that I have goes out the window during the holidays.

I don’t have all that much of a sweet tooth - I can resist it if I put my mind to it - but I go a little nuts with the Christmas cookies and other treats between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I already told you about the Trader Joe’s Gingerbread people (bad news on that front - by mid-December they were reportedly done producing it and the store was all sold out and I believe this is a story Kathy did not make up to get me to stop eating them. I do think it is true.)…and last week at BJ’s Kathy picked up some Holiday Mingle Mix to add to the junk food equation, and then I picked up some Jingle Jangle from Trader Joe’s in an effort to find a Ginger People replacement.

Would you believe these are holiday treats I’ve never had before?

I mean, I’ve had chocolate-covered pretzels before - those seem to be a big component of either your Jingle Jangle or your Mingle Mix, pick your poison.

Little peanut butter cups, knockoff M and Ms, chocolate-coated cookies and popcorn…all of this stuff mixed together - I did not know this was a thing.

I also picked up some Pepperidge Farm holiday cookies - more ginger cookies and an egg nog cookie. (Side note: Years ago there were some excellent gingerbread men I used to get that I also think were Pepperidge Farm but they stopped making those. Sad day for John.)

Another new thing is I bought a gingerbread house. (What can I say. I like gingerbread.) A 2-pack, actually. The plan this weekend is to build those houses with whoever wants to join me.

Usually if we have a gingerbread house in the house it’s something the girls put together at a friend’s house or something.

If it’s there I’ll break down a wall or pick at some frosting.

This year I’m ensuring that we’ll have some gingerbread walls to eat.

And then January will come around and I’ll start controlling my impulse to eat anything bad for me again.

Unless they sell Jingle Jangle through the winter.

Then we have some reassessing to do.