Christmas morning should smell like tangerines. That is one of the aromas and flavors whose presence I require to make the holiday complete.
I suspect that other people feel that way about other holidays. A friend who celebrates Hanukkah, for instance, says for him the holiday has to smell like potato pancakes. While the Kwanzaa table is decorated with fruits and vegetables, particularly those important in African-American history -- bananas, plantains, peanuts, corn, yams and rice -- the primary aroma of the celebration, I am told, is incense which is burned during the feast.
I got hooked on the aroma of tangerines as a boy. Every Christmas, as my brothers and I raced around the tree tearing open presents, someone would peel a few tangerines, filling the happy room with a heady aroma. To this day, when I catch a whiff of the sweet perfume of tangerine peels, it gives me a rush. For a minute or two, an increasingly cynical adult experiences a feeling that borders on childlike wonder.
I also require nuts, walnuts and peanuts, at Christmastime. The walnuts should be stuffed in the stockings, just below the tangerines. When I was a kid, walnuts appeared only on Christmas morning and were considered the nuts of a great occasion. Peanuts appeared at the Knights of Columbus party. For me Christmas peanuts meant a taste of freedom. Like most kids, I was under a lot of pressure in the days leading up to Christmas. I thought my arithmetic teacher would never stop assigning extra homework. I thought Christmas would never come. But experience had taught me that if I somehow lasted until the Knights of Columbus Christmas party, life would get better.
The Knights of Columbus is a fraternal organization for Catholic men. My dad was a Knight. On a December Sunday the Knights of St. Joseph, Mo., would open their clubhouse for a Christmas party for their kids. The Knights' clubhouse was a remarkable turn-of-the century structure. It had winding staircases, wood-paneled rooms and a second-floor balcony. For me and the horde of other Knights of Columbus offspring who showed up at the party, the hall was a pleasure palace.
There were free Pepsis served at the bar, a pool table in the basement, and everywhere you looked there were peanuts. Mounds of peanuts sat on every table. You could stuff them in your pockets. You could take them home. You could eat as many as you wanted. I ate and ate and ate. When I tasted those peanuts, holiday pressure lifted. I knew that somehow things were going to be OK. I knew that I was only a mere arithmetic class or two away from Christmas vacation, from liberation.
