Hooooooo boy. I never thought it would come to this.

Maybe it comes from being exposed to another one of those Maury Show `I've got a terrible secret' episodes -- you know the ones: I-cheated-on-you-and-now-I-don't-know-if-the-baby-is-yours-or-not-but-let's-go-on-national-television-and-make-you-look-like-a-schmuck shows that are the staple of daytime television.

But the Dr. Phil Show suggests that confession is good for the soul, so I should probably get this off my chest now.

I actually like fruitcake.

God. I never thought I would reveal that. I feel like such a failure as a human being.

Before I go off and sneak myself another slice of fruitcake and an eggnog latte, let me clarify -- I'm not talking about those Christmas-in-a-Tin fruitcakes you get at the department store and send off to your those relatives you don't really like anyway. That kind of fruitcake ranks with the cockroach as things most likely to survive a nuclear holocaust. You need a jackhammer and a diamond saw to get a slice off some of those babies.

I have a theory about those fruitcakes. They fill this so-called cake with tons of dried fruit and decorate it with more dried fruit and nuts, and then they scientifically suck every ounce of moisture out of it before sending it off for an unsuspecting public to chip teeth on year after year. My hunch is that, if the Titanic had been carrying a hold full of fruitcake, all that seawater would have been sucked up and the ship would have sailed merrily on its way -- which would have kept that damned Celine Dion song from being played on the radio every five minutes for two years and saved my sanity. But we'll never know.

No, the fruitcake I like are the ones my mother makes. The fruitcake I grew up on. The fruitcake that lies at the bottom of my freezer like a time capsule, each with its year of origin marked on the aluminum foil like the born-on date that Budweiser boasts (which, come to think about it, mom should have patented -- she's been doing that longer than King of Beers). She told me her secret years ago -- not that I make fruitcake myself. She starts with an applesauce cake and adds dried fruit and nuts. And no, she doesn't get all carried away with the ornamental fruit. This fruitcake is designed to be sliced and served and not to be a decorative ornament. Maybe that's the ultimate difference.

Okay. I've now laid bare my deepest, darkest Holiday secret. I think I'll go hide for a while, maybe listen to that cd with the dogs barking Christmas carols. No, wait, that would be another confession.

More soon.