Holiday diet? Are you nuts? Mmm…nuts.

Quick: have you recently accidentally misplaced the bathroom scales, in the driveway, behind the car’s rear tire? Have you been decorating all your large mirrors with thick flock? Are your ‘lite cooking’ tips buried under stacks of colorful Christmas recipe calorie bombs?

If so, don’t be alarmed. It’s not your fault. The reason for this behavior is your home, like millions of others, has been secretly possessed by holiday diet demons. It’s a fact. Holiday diet demons (or HDD’s) are invisible, attracted to the colors red and green, gravy, and appetites. They have nothing to do all day and night but try to convince men, women, children and dogs this is eating season, anything is game, and resistance is futile.

I have personally encountered these demons, and they’re not pretty. In fact, they’re quite crafty. Inside your head, they sound completely reasonable and convincing. They are able to whisper seductive cooking and eating instructions directly into the part of the brain that’s responsible for stuffing the mouth full with both hands.

That is why, as a public service, I’m presently sitting outside, away from any possible snacking opportunity, to share some of my important findings and notes. Use this list to check yourself for whether diet demons are secretly responsible for some added jolly at your house.

1. One sure sign of holiday diet demon infestation, is having a cheery belief that foods with names ending in ‘itos’ are part of a trendy new hispanic healthfood craze. This is actually false.

2. If you’ve been celebrating because chocolate is busy curing cancer, you may have demons. No, not even the really dark, rich, smooth expensive kind. So, keeping a high level in the bloodstream at all times, actually is not necessary.

3. Pie a la mode doesn’t really appear on the breakfast menu of any culture, ever.

4. Deep fat fried food is actually not a method recommended by medical research to prevent pregnancy. When you get right down to statistics and actual couples, it’s just not been found to be all that effective.

5. A few extra pounds underneath the chin doesn’t really make you look more distinguished. And neither does the scarf.

6. Parents: punishing your children, or teaching them a lesson, by finishing their desert for them, will send the message that all you really care about is getting their sweets. Highly likely, some demons involved there.

7. In spite of how good it sounds, that new strategy of reducing or completely eliminating the hours between meals will not simplify your life. Not in a good way, anyhow.

8. Joining Holiday Diet Clubs, whose members go into each others homes to eat their fattening foods for them, has not yet been proved to result in any significant weight loss.

9. Most studies do show that people better survive cold weather, and colder months, when they add an extra inch or two of insulation to their door jambs. Not their waists, as previously reported.

If you have any such signs of holiday diet demons at your place, be sure and pass them along to me in the comment box below, or twitter me @kitchenup #dietdemon.

As for me, I am not curious about what the buzzards are circling over there. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t want to eat it. But, maybe it’s worth just a quick check.