“Holiday pounds” are the extra weight gained from eating too well on holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. The term “holiday pounds” is used most often in advertisements for health clubs and diets promising to shed those “holiday pounds.”
‘Holiday pounds” has been cited in print since 1932.
Urban Dictionary
holiday pounds
November 30, 2009 Urban Word of the Day
The extra little bit of weight you put on during a period of being on holiday or vacation.
Man, when I get back to work I’ll have to start going to the gym again- I’ve put on some serious holiday pounds.
by yobrova Oct 12, 2009
26 December 1932, Oakland (CA) Tribune, pg. 12, col. 2:
Y. W. C. A. Gym to Aid
Melt Off Holiday Pounds
Hundreds of Oakland women plan to lose hundreds of pounds of surplus weight, gained during the holiday season, through reducing and gymnasium classes at Oakland Y. W. C. A. when the new classes open next week.
20 July 1940, Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada) Free Press, “Tips For Women,” pg. 7, col. 8:
Follow these rules and those “holiday pounds” will stay away, she adds.
6 December 1940, Chicago (IL) Daily Tribune, pg. 25 ad:
FOR HOLIDAY POUNDS. 15.00. So divinely simple, your public will think you paid a fortune for it. It clings. Makes your figure a triumph.
Google News Archive
11 January 1966, Prescott (AZ) Evening Courier, pg. 9, col. 3 classified ad:
Join the Trim And Swim and shed those extra holiday pounds.
Google Books
29 December 1975, New York magazine, pg. 91, col. 2 ad:
Get holiday pounds off permanently in our post-Christmas Weight Workshop. GROWTH SKILLS, 879-3600.
Google Books
21 January 1982, Jet magazine, pg. 23, col. 2:
Jumping Rope Best Method To Lose Weight, Tone Body
Instead of trying to jog or diet those extra holiday pounds away, Blacks would be better off if they jumped rope to burn off the excess calories and tone muscles at the same time, many health experts agree.
Google Books
January 1989, Texas Monthly, pg. 52, col. 2:
Resolved to eat healthier in 1989 or to lose those extra holiday pounds?
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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