Smells like Christmas

[need4cognition]

Oranges remind me of Christmas. One year we stuffed oranges full of whole cloves and gave them as Christmas gifts. My Mom always put at least one or two oranges into our stockings - the purpose most likely being to fill them up with something other than candy.

Comments

[curieuse]

I got oranges too. And bananas.

[darcilla]

Me too. I think this tradition is pretty old (at least in my family) and stems from the fact that such "exotic" fruits were really expensive and hard to find. Not so long ago, it was a novelty/luxury to get an orange once a year.

[need4cognition]

I have a really vague memory of reading a book as a child where the central figure was worried that they wouldn't be able to afford their Christmas orange, and thus was worried that they would get scurvy - the illness a lot of sailors would suffer from when they didn't have enough Vitamin-C.

[lolacat]

I think it was one of the Little House on the Prairie books.