Here’s a holiday tip I learned over the weekend: A fruitcake can be used like a Duraflame log in the fireplace. Jay Leno

Fruitcakes make ideal gifts because the Postal Service has been unable to find a way to damage them. Dave Barry

Tis the season for fruitcake jokes.

I finally figured out a use for holiday fruitcakes--paint them white to keep people from parking on your lawn.

I found the ideal fruitcake recipe. Forget all the other ingredients and just use rum.

I happen to like fruitcakes myself. My mother made two or three every year. We ate one and the others were given as gifts. They were good. My wife makes a "bread" that really is a small fruitcake in a loafpan--one of my favorite Christmas treats. I grant that some of the store-bought fruitcakes aren't great, though some are, like the famous Corsicana, Texas, fruitcakes.

I suspect that most of the people who make fun of these Christmas confections of fruits, nuts, and spices in a thick cake batter have never tried one. They just go with the stereotype.

I am not innocent of going with the humor flow myself. For years I made fun of Spam, the canned meat. It is like I assumed that any sentence with the word Spam in it was the set-up for a joke.

Last month, in the grocery store with my wife, on a whim I picked up a can. I tried it, and I liked it. Now I know that the word "Spam" is not automatically funny.

C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters defined frivolity as the assumption that the joke has already been made. It is the only form of humor encouraged by demonic temptors, because it creates the frame of mind in which virtue can be derided. Frivolous people act as though truth-telling, honest behavior, chastity, loyalty, and such are somehow literally ridiculous.

The older I get, the less patience I have with frivolous people, or with frivolous comedy. I wish they would try virtue before they ridicule it.