Holidays and weight

The holiday season is upon us again. To me, it seems like the time between the last holiday season and the current one was spent trying to lose the pounds gained during the last season. When I was in grad-school, it was easier to stay away from sweet treats because everyone around you are very much health conscious and even if you did indulge, you could work it all off in one of the many awesome free gymnasiums in the university. Plus, one had all the time in the world to workout as much as one wanted to. Since I have started working, things have not been so perfect though. October(Halloween) marks the beginning of candy bowls, cakes and sweets being brought into work by kind(or not so kind) co-workers. Then there's a thanksgiving lunch at work, the leftover desserts of which linger around the office kitchen longer than necessary. Add to that there are sweets from the many bake-offs that people do at home for their kids. So whenever you venture into the kitchen to get some coffee/tea or even water, you are tempted to have some. If you resist the temptation by not going into the kitchen at all, you keep thinking about all those awesome treats awaiting you, and then off you go!
Working out is another story. You are at work from 8:00am to 5:00pm. Getting up early is an ordeal during winters. When the temperature outside is sub-zero and inside it is snuggly and warm, who would want to get out in that cold and warm up the cold bones by breaking a sweat? Even if you do manage to get up and go to the gym, which is a sorry excuse for one(its a free apartment gym, with 3 treadmills, one elliptical, one rower, a few bikes and weights), someone is already working out on the elliptical, so you hop on to the only treadmill that is not occupied and start running. Within a few minutes, you resolve to workout breaks as you start getting cramps in your abdomen and stop. Now all you do is wait for the elliptical-person to finish. For some reason, people working out on elliptical trainers really have no concern for the waiting populace. I once waited for a whole 45 minutes for one fine lady to finish her workout and she showed no signs of even slowing down. I even gave her a few rude 'looks' but she didnt budge. Had someone given me the looks, I would probably have cried and stepped off the machine! Anyway, coming back to working out, morning is hence ruled out. Going in the evening is not so simple either. Ofcourse there is the cold. Then you need to cook first. Even if you do manage to cook by 6:30pm, you have barely an hour to workout since ideally(sigh) you would want to eat early and go to bed early. An hour of workout, which inclues stretching, cardio and weights, never did anyone any good. I barely break a sweat in 30 minutes! Thus you take an hour out of your very busy schedule, and it barely helps. Instead of putting on 10 pounds, you might put on 5. And then working thsoe off takes forever. When you reach your old weight(pre holiday season weight), the next holiday season is almost there.
Thus run the holiday weight woes, you end up eating, but not working out, during the holidays. In an ideal world, holiday season would be in summer when you eat all those yummy treats and then go workout your a$$ off(its warm outside, remember, so you CAN get out) and burn everything off. Hell, in an ideal world, you eat what you want and it doesn't show! (why not? It's an ideal world after all!)