Fruitcake - Great Choice for Holiday Gifts

Have you been trapped into attending some sort of crowded holiday gathering? Maybe the family used guilt, or perhaps you had a senior moment and agreed to attend. Either way, now you're stuck. You're going to have to show up and be somewhat acceptable.

What do you do? You're supposed to bring a gift of some sort, so now what?

The answer is fruitcake!

Everybody has a couple of these lying around. Check your attic or garage. You'll probably find at least one or two fruitcakes, and the great thing is they're probably already wrapped! If you can't find a fruitcake in your own basement, then take a look at either antique shops or places like Goodwill. Flea markets are another good source of these inexpensive but wonderful gifts.

Fruitcake Festive Decorations

Another nice thing about these nutty, somewhat fruity delicacies is that they're durable. They offer a colorful way to bring some festivity to the holiday season.

For example; suppose you have a car up on blocks in the front yard. You've been meaning to get around to fixing it, but there just hasn't been the time. Replace those drab cinder blocks with a few fruitcakes under each axle!

Then there's the idea of using several fruitcakes in the trunk of your working car or pickup truck, rather than those depressing bags of cat litter or salt. This extra weight will help you to avoid getting stuck on ice or snow, and look quite nice in the event someone looks in your trunk.

Why spend money on something that'll just fall apart? We all know how cheap everything is these days, with manufacturers putting out total crap. They don't make anything the way they used to, so we need to be judicious in our decisions about what to buy.

A fruitcake, or ten, is a good way to get a bang-for-the-buck! Not only do you get a durable, long-lasting, quality product, but it doesn't require batteries. It has no moving parts. In an emergency, it can be eaten. And they last for generations!

Origins of Fruitcake

As a matter of curiosity, we did some research to find out how long fruitcake has been around. How old is this delectable treat, and where does it come from. Who invented it?

Interestingly enough, fruitcake is a naturally occurring product similar in nature to sandstone and slate. It dates back to the Pliocene epoch, the geological period from about 5.3 million to 1.8 million years ago. At that time, trees were the predominant life-form on the planet.

Many of these trees bore fruits and nuts, until there was a horrible cataclysm of epic proportions. Planetary climates changed drastically, huge tidal waves rushed around the globe, snow and rain fell everywhere, and the trees were buried. This happened in a matter of only days.

Over thousands of years, the increasing weight of massive amounts of new sedimentation crushed down these trees, along with their nuts and fruits, until they were formed into the layered form of stone we know today as fruitcake.

Today, miners extract this holiday product, mostly using strip-mining techniques. It's uncovered in wide areas, often measured in acres. Then "cake cutters" move in with horizontal band-saws and cut the fruitcake into bricks.

Fruitcake is very dense, with an atomic weight similar to lead, making the transportation difficult. However, this density allows for long-term storage, durability, and makes it edible for thousands of years.

Artists have found that, like sandstone, fruitcake can be easily carved using simple tools. Many interesting sculptures are on display in such world museums as the Louvre, the National Art Gallery, the Vatican, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.