Dear chocolate: Why do you make me so happy?

Dear chocolate,

Forgive me, for I’m long overdue in writing you this letter. While I’ve cherished and adored you for most of my life, I’ve never quite come out and expressed to you why I love you and why you bring such happiness to my life.

Let me be specific — it is you, milk chocolate, with your simple sweet goodness that I’m speaking to. While yes, dark chocolate, I know that you are the one packed thick with antioxidants and flavanoids and a square a day will help boost my heart health, the heart wants what the heart wants. And in this case, it’s milk chocolate.

I write this letter today because it’s this time of year when I really cherish you. I must be in love because I’m seeing you everywhere right now. Formed into little eggs and covered with thin, crunchy candy shells — you, my pretty ones, are the ones I like to nibble on while writing. Then there are you, milk chocolate bunnies — none of this hollow bunny stuff, because that just feels like false advertising. Nope, it’s the solid bunnies that are truly satisfying to savour, and snapping a set of ears off in one bite puts a Hannibal Lecter-like smile on my face. I relish the sweet chocolate taste and hold myself back from swallowing the whole thing. Instead I let the chocolate slowly melt into a smooth puddle in my mouth, in the process sparking off endorphins in my body. If I were by myself, I might actually sit back and close my eyes to enjoy the taste, Augustus Gloop-style. But it’s Easter morning and there’s a room full of family and that would just be weird.

Chocolate, you’re on my mind this weekend because I don’t know if there’s any other time of year I let myself eat chocolate with such abandon. Calories and fat grams don’t count on Easter, do they? It’s one of the few mornings of the year where I have chocolate for breakfast, and I do so happily and shamelessly. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?

I hope our relationship continues to be close — that even when my children are older and the Easter Bunny doesn't frequent our house as often, you and I will remain connected in our one-sided relationship in which you bring me happiness.

Love forever,

Astrid