<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/18/opinion/18STRO.html?ei=5007&en=180c679dd615bb2e&ex=1387083600&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=all&position=">Op-Ed Contributor: The Worst Meal of the Year</a>: “Like Thanksgiving in the United States, Christmas in Britain has grown into an inescapable culinary dinosaur from which you chicken out at your peril — even in an era when a new, lighter British cuisine is being promoted by young chefs like Jamie Oliver. Families, the majority of which are better kept apart, are suddenly thrown together for a ritual feast lasting several days, plowing their way through a few million roast turkeys, mince pies and Christmas puddings and cakes, not to mention swimming the alcohol lake.”
No fixed plans. Not intent upon arriving.