HUMOR – Are you feeling sluggish? Are you suffering from a turkey-binge hangover? Is the thought of standing up to turn off the lights so that you can fall asleep at 6 p.m. too much to bear? You are not alone – even two days hence.

The rest of America is suffering right along with you. We are all groggy. We all ate too much turkey in the name of thankfulness. We are all blaming the tryptophan-laden bird that we gorged by the plateful.

But guess what? The turkey is not to blame. Turkey actually contains less tryptophan than both chicken and milk, both of which I, for one, ingest every day. This is a conversation often heard around my kitchen at mealtime:

“Hey Mom, what’s for breakfast?”

“Chicken and milk, same as usual.”

“Yay! We love chicken and milk! You are the best mom ever! You should take the rest of the day off!”

But I rarely take the day off, and I never feel terribly sleepy, despite my strict diet of chicken and milk.

So if turkey isn’t the coma-causing culprit, then what is? Please do not get angry with me when I make the following suggestion: Perhaps the cause of our post-holiday sluggishness is the volume of food we consume. In addition to the amount of food we eat, I believe the types of food we eat may be a contributing factor. It could be the turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and stuffing, all swimming in a gallon of gravy and then chased down with a fat slice of pie, followed by another slice of pie topped off with a dollop of Daisy. Followed by a nap and another piece of pie. I am no dietician, but this combination of foods seems more likely to cause drowsiness than a little poultry.

I can hear you now, “You’re telling me that an enormous meal composed entirely of starch and white flour and sugar and fat is going to make me sluggish?! What the HAYnes? I hate you, Elise Haynes.”

You are not alone in your sentiments, but I also have good news: There are several ways to get past the post-holiday grogginess. Unfortunately, all of them involve zipping up your pants best you can and getting off of the couch. Here are two nearly cost-free suggestions to get your family moving:

Gather your family in the largest room in your house – keep in mind, you are going to need room for flailing. Turn on the YouTube video of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band, be sure to set it at maximum volume. If you are not a fan of the devil being driven out of Georgia by an expert fiddle player, then you may want to choose a different song. Just make it fast-paced and somewhat obnoxious. Then, let the music move you.

Put on your running shoes, gather the fastest runners in your family and a few cans of silly string. Then silly-string-attack the poor fools waiting in line at Best Buy (there was no shortage of them Thanksgiving night, or Black Friday, and chances are there is no shortage of them today – if there is, find the next nearest small business, it is Small Business Saturday so those ought to be the next recipients of the hordes. Whatever you do, find the line, attack and then run away. Fast.

It is not that hard to get your family moving and get over the after-Thanksgiving sleepiness. The tricky part is staying away from the leftovers.

Or don’t, “tomorrow is another day,” as I pointed out last week.

 

Elise Haynes chronicles family life in her blog Haynes Family Yard Sale. Any opinions stated in this column are her own and not necessarily those of St. George News.

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