Oranges - a traditional fruit!

In my experience oranges are like the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her forehead: when they are good they are very, very good but when they are bad they are a big disappointment. They can look perfect, a beautiful golden yellowy orange colour, a good shape, even having that marking at one end indicating that they are navel oranges and will have those little inner segments we call “babies” in our house. And then you start to peel one and find it is hard to peel, leaving loads of pith, making it hard to separate the segments. Even worse, sometimes those inner segments have a tough inner skin on them, so that even if the fruit is sweet you are left with a stringy residue which is difficult to swallow and embarrassing to spit out. Then there are those which peel nicely and divide beautifully into inner segments, promising a good orange-eating experience, only to let you down by proving to be dry and tasteless. 

As you can probably tell, I have had some poor oranges in my time.

Looking to replenish the fruit bowl one day last week, I spotted some promising-looking oranges in the local co-op store. So I asked an employee, who turned out to be the manager (maybe it was his Christmas jumper that made him look less than managerial), if these oranges were good, explaining why I had my doubts. “Take one and try it,” he said, “don’t pay for it. Let me know how you find it.” Now, you don’t get that kind of customer at the bigger co-op stores or the Tescos or Asdas or Sainsbury’ses. Probably not even at the Waitroses. Not that we have a Waitrose in our neck of the woods. We must be the wrong kind of area.

So I took the free orange, we sampled it and it turned out to be a very good orange. Life is full of nice surprises. Yesterday I bought a few more and the girl on the till said, “I must buy some to put in my girls’ Christmas stockings.” And I was whisked back to an age when you had an orange, or perhaps a tangerine, in your Christmas stocking, along with a couple of small presents which you could open while you were still in bed, before going down to discover what Santa had left under the tree.

Some people, then, keep up those old traditions. (Our grandchildren turn up and raid the fruit bowl all year round: a quick “Please can I have an orange / apple / banana?” and that’s it.) For traditions are nicely reassuring. Apart from the households that seem unable to get through Christmas without a traditional family row.

Our daughter has established one where she buys new pyjamas for her children to wear on Christmas Eve, presumably to ensure that Santa sees that they are nicely dressed for bed. What is he doing in their bedrooms anyway? Shouldn’t he restrict himself to the living room? Mind you, he must have difficulty getting into their house as it is one of those modern houses built without a chimney. No chance of his getting stuck there and needing to be pulled out!

I know other people who make a tradition out of wearing their pyjamas all day on Christmas Day, making a virtue put of sheer laziness. Clearly they do not expect visitors on Christmas day. Our daughter’s lot have to get dressed so that they can come and be fed, traditional style, at our house.

All good traditional fun!