It all began with a Christmas present...

When the paper fell away, it revealed that most common yet unwanted of Christmas gifts. It was a fruitcake. At first, all I could do was question what I might have done to upset my sister so much that she would give me a fruitcake. Who eats fruitcake and if they do so, why?

You always see fruitcake during the Christmas Season but you never see anyone eating one. Does anyone eat fruitcake? That question was the start of my odyssey and my descent into Hell.

Beginning my research, I came upon many stories. They ranged from the common and the mundane such as using a fruitcake as a doorstop, paperweight or thrown as a weapon. Stories such as baking jewels into fruitcakes to smuggle them into foreign countries or hide them from tax collectors showed ingenuity. After all, who would touch a fruitcake much less look inside one. Others I took as apocryphal, such as the one that the city walls of Troy were actually built of bricks of fruitcake. However it was the stories from friends, which really started me thinking.

One told me of his college days in his fraternity. He said that hungry, and often drunk, fraternity brothers would come to his room trying to find something to eat. Since he received care packages from home, he was a possible source of goodies. His remedy was to offer them the fruitcake that his mother sent him before Christmas. He said that even drunk and hungry frat boys wouldn’t eat fruitcake. I’m not sure if he used the same fruitcake for all four years of college.

What became the defining moment came from a “stoner” friend. He related that in years of toking that no matter how bad someone had the munchies that they would do without rather than try to eat fruitcake. If not even frat boys or stoners will eat fruitcake, then how did such a negative become so closely associated with the Christmas Season?

My first break came when I found an article concerning some scrolls found in a cave near the Dead Sea in Israel. It turns out that one well known phrase has been long mistranslated. That saying is “The path to Hell is paved with good intentions.” One of these new found scrolls show that the Aramaic translation is actually “The road to Hell is paved with fruitcake.” The implications of this are immediately discernable. Is there a connection between Hell and fruitcake? Is it possible that fruitcake is actually an infernal device of Hell? To find the answer these questions, I had only one choice. I would have to go to Hell.

Like Dorothy, my path was clearly marked before me. All I had to do was follow the fruitcake brick road and I would wind up in Hell. Of course, I’ve had people telling me for years that I would wind up there but this time I was planning on coming back. So I loaded up with Dr. Pepper and chocolate (as close to Heaven as we can get in this life) and began the journey.

There’s not much to say about the trip itself. It was, of course, boring as hell. Once there I was immediately struck by the differences between reality and how Hell is represented on Earth. First of all, Dante was only partly correct. There is indeed a large frozen area which one encounters at first before descending into the very bowels of Hell. Yet it is not frozen ice. That should be obvious since ice cubes are saintly and holy creatures so of course wouldn’t be found in Hell; but I digress upon a different theological point. Rather it is a frozen expanse of fruitcake. The denizens of this level of Hell are confronted with a frozen plain, numbing to mind and body and the only sustenance is frozen fruitcake. Frozen fruitcake is actually worse than warm temperature fruitcake, or at least that is what the damned told me. Once I penetrated to the center of this hellishly frozen food, I found an opening through which I descended to the center of Hell.

It is there that I found the lake of fire with which we are so familiar. If you have every wondered how a lake can burn, I now have the answer. The demons of Hell take bricks of fruitcake, set them aflame and throw them into the waters of Hell where they continue to burn. The burning lake of fire that is such a sermon staple is in fact a seething mass of burning fruitcakes. It was with this burning lake as a backdrop that I encountered Satan and began my interview.

Jimmy: I noticed that there seems to be a lot of fruitcake associated with Hell.
Satan: Thanks. I consider fruitcake to be one of my greatest works. Imagine, taking something everyone loves, dessert and twisting it into something reviled by all, even though you use ingredients which everyone loves.

Jimmy: How did you get fruitcake to be so closely tied to Christmas?
Satan: That one did take a lot of work. I just had to be patient and just keep working at it. It literally took centuries. My big break came when I was able to convince the English that figgy pudding was a great idea for a Christmas treat. Once I got that accepted I was over half way there. Have you ever tasted figgy pudding? I mean, eeeww!

Jimmy: But why did you want fruitcake associated with Christmas?
Satan: Can you think of anything more hellish than fruitcake? What could be better? Christmas is a time of giving, sharing and goodwill. What reflects a more uncaring attitude than giving a fruitcake? What could be more worthless? How devastated does one feel when receiving a fruitcake? If there is anything, which is the antithesis of the true meaning of Christmas, it is fruitcake. It’s been fun gloating but I really have to go. There’s a new batch of souls here for my welcoming speech. You don’t need to stay, you’ll hear it soon enough.

With those ominous words ringing in my ears, I left Hell and returned. Think upon these words when preparing for next Christmas. Hopefully you will never have to see what I have seen. The fruitcake! The horror!