Fruitcake is a pretty interesting dessert. It is traditionally served at Christmastime in the US and other countries and at weddings in several other places, including New Zealand. They have been the subject of deep controversy, as when Pope Innocent VIII wrote the Butterbrief granting permission for the use of butter in fruitcakes all the way back in 1490. Most notably, they are, almost without exception, disgusting.
Time was, one of the ways you showed camaraderie and love with your family and friends was by sending them a fruitcake. Often soaked in alcohol, they would keep for weeks or even months. We no longer live in a time where that is important, but for a long time, the idea that giving a fruitcake was a sign of love at the holidays persisted.
Yeah, love... that's it.
By the 60s and 70s, fruitcake became the object of mockery it rightly deserved to be. For the most part, people were waiting a reasonable and polite amount of time and then pitching the monstrosities out. That reasonable and polite amount of time? A little over a week after Christmas. Thus, January 3rd as the honorary day that fruitcake gets tossed was born. Over time, tossing became less of a euphemism - every year in since 1995 in Manitou Springs, Colorado they hold the Great Fruitcake Toss to see who can literally launch their disgusting morsel the farthest. We decided to take that show on the road to Fenton, Michigan for a day.
Of course, as with most things, there is the traditional way to do it and the way that involves explosives. Like all red-blooded super Americans, we chose the latter.
'Murica
We did take turns tossing slices of fruitcake. Wes and Justin got theirs the farthest. My throws, given my long and storied history as a JV softball player, were admittedly subpar. Sydney and Wes's nephew Marcus had great throws too. Our biggest challenge with the throws was the cake breaking up in midair - fruitcakes, in all their retched glory, are incredibly moist. We each got a couple good tosses off though.
But it wasn't the tossing we enjoyed the most - it was the destruction. I can't even begin to tell you how cathartic it was to blow some shit up. It was like walking outside and seeing a blessing of unicorns dancing on a double rainbow. Sidenote - a group of unicorns is actually called a blessing. How freaking amazing is that? It makes even more sense than a murder of crows.
Even cooler than all that, is that Wes built us a cannon.
For realsies.
We stuffed about 1/3 of the nastiest, pastiest fruitcake ever into the cannon along with a generous helping of gunpowder. And then. Boom.
Cannon go boom.
The frozen lake provided an amazing shooting/blowing up gallery for us. Nice and safe (which is very important) and the charred fragments of fruitcake were easy to find on the pristine white snow drifts. We all walked out to the farthest point we could find fruitcake and then Wes counted the yards back.
51 Yards. That's half a football field.
So, like, that's awesome and good and we're done for the day, right? Oh nay nay! Not when you have access to M-80s and 2/3 of a fruitcake left to destroy.
Not even remotely overkill.
BLOWN UP, SIR!
I cannot possibly overstate how much fun it was to blow up the fruitcake. I want to make lots of jokes and be interesting and cool and whatever. I want so desperately to make this entry hugely and amazingly entertaining, but NOTHING I write can explain the absolute and complete joy that was blowing up that tiny, disgusting fruitcake. I wouldn't say it was as joyful as getting married, but there was this moment at the reception where... you know what... I'm going to be in a lot of trouble with Justin no matter how I end this sentence so I'm just going to stop now.
The point is, if you have any excuse to blow something up, you know, safely and whatnot, I would highly recommend it. One of the things we're finding with these holidays is that, similar to the original project back in 2010, the days are so much more joyful right away. We would never have thought to randomly take food items out to the middle of a frozen lake and make them explode on a regular day - but today it was a celebration. Today it was a liberation. Today it was exuberance.
This project has been glorious and I know it will continue to be. I see no earthly reason that every day shouldn't be a celebration. What are we on this earth for, but to feel joy? What a great and glorious gift from God it is that we can do and see and experience the things we can. I'm not trying to get all preachy, but I had stopped waking up every morning excited for the newness of the day. Don't get me wrong - getting to be with my soulmate, having a loving family, having a great job and wonderful friends - those are all amazing. But it is so easy to wake up, go through a day and go to sleep without really reflecting on everything this world has given us.
We aren't missing days like that now. We are living in each present moment. And today, the present moment we were living in involved blowing up some fruitcake. That's a darn good moment, I'd say.
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