Gift-giving that bears fruit
Christmas is truly a child's holiday. It is a day filled with wonder and joy, of love and reunion. Why should citrus play any role at all?
At least that's a question that occurred to me most every Dec. 25 through the 1960s as I slid down the stairs (yes, slid on the back of my footed pajamas as it was less likely to wake sleeping parents in the pre-dawn hours) to discover that Santa had slipped tangerines and oranges into my stocking - again.
What's the deal with all the fruit, fat man? I can recall thinking at the time. A navel orange may be something rare over there in the frozen tundra of the North Pole, but here in the U.S., we have the A&P produce section and Dollar Day specials.
To me, an orange or tangerine was the Styrofoam peanut of the day. Santa always seemed to put one or two items of genuine interest in the Christmas stocking (maybe a Hot Wheels car, a Slinky or Silly Putty) and padded the rest with fruit and nuts. Hadn't he noticed my parents had the same stuff lying around in the kitchen? This is thin gruel for a boy raised on Hasbro, Mattel and Wham-O, thin gruel indeed.
Sure, back in the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder, a piece of fruit in the winter must have seemed like a gift from the gods, at least the ones residing in South Florida. My parents, both children of the Great Depression, probably thought a tangerine was not something to be taken lightly either. I, selfish middle-class baby boomer child that I was, could never muster such appreciation for any of it. When I became older - and wiser in the logistics of Christmas - I resolved to make sure my own progeny wouldn't be haunted by anything round and orange unless it was a Nerf ball.
This seemed to work out fine until two weeks ago. Visiting their grandparents in Chicago, the children baked cookies and heard stories of Christmases long, long ago. They learned about family traditions, about friends and relations no longer with us, about the good and sometimes not-so-good times.
Dad, my youngest later confided to me, Grandma says she used to get oranges and tangerines in her stocking. Wouldn't that be neat?
And so it came to pass that a lesson was learned. And without any assistance from the ghosts of grocers past, present or future. Today the children will have their Christmas presents, and you can be sure that at least some of them will be a-peeling.
- Peter Jensen
Cold snap, warm welcome
