My family isn't tribal (well, okay, maybe it is) but I did play Survivor yesterday.

I've never really hosted a family gathering before. Yeah, I hosted a Thanksgiving celebration in my dorm kitchen in Aberdeen, but there really wasn't a whole lot of cleaning or cooking involved. Yet another reason I love potlucks.

This time, however, I was host and chef- with admirable backup provided by my mom.

Nothing got burned.

No one got sick.

Aria didn't jump into the turkey (or oven, or sink, or bathtub).

Plumbers were not called.

So yeah, it was a success.

I am tired of running across article after article telling you how NOT to gain weight during the holiday season, how to select your dinner items so that you can stick to your diet, how to exercise to keep up your weight loss. Obviously, Americans are obsessed with these things. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that dieting is our new national pastime.

And I'll admit it- I freak out about all of this stuff too. Is it because I have an eating disorder? I'm sure that doesn't help. But it's hard to escape this madness.

Yet, pre-anorexia, basically a decade ago, Thanksgiving wasn't really a day of gluttony for me. I probably ate more than usual, but not as much as a lot of people. I didn't piss and moan about how I had "let myself go" or how long it was going to take me to exercise everything off. I had my batshit crazy relatives to deal with.

And this year, the first one since 2001 where I wasn't freaking about every single calorie,* I did eat more than I was really comfortable with. Just like every other night, I lay in bed at the end of the day and recited my daily litany of what I had eaten that I shouldn't have, if I exercised, and then berated myself for eating too much and not exercising (or not exercising enough). Yesterday was probably worse than usual.

But I survived. My pants still fit. I didn't bust the seam of my jeans. I ate today. The world didn't stop.

I think that's going to have to be enough.

*It was probably more like one out of two or one out of three, but still. I put a squirt of Reddi-Whip on my dessert and that was that. Which is something that never would have happened even a year ago. A dollop of Cool Whip meant less cake.