I have a question for you: what is in the toe of your sock? If you immediately thought: “Well, my toes are in the toe of my socks, you moron” then perhaps you misunderstood the question and I’m a little hurt by you calling me a moron. What I mean is: what is traditionally found in the bottom of your Christmas sock on Christmas morning? If you said “an orange” I’d be happy on account of that’s what I was expecting on account of that’s what my family and most of the people I know find in their Christmas socks every year. If you said, “a lump of coal” I’m a bit worried about you and perhaps you should try to get off the Naughty List next year.
The reason I’m asking about your socks is that as everybody who gets an orange in their Santa sock already knows, the orange in the toe must be a special kind of orange or it doesn’t count.
Back in the day when we were kids and Christmases were cold and sparkly and magical and even the roaming dinosaurs were full of Christmas spirit and didn’t try to stomp on us or eat us, wooden boxes of oranges appeared just in time for the holiday season. These small, squat, easy-to-peel and delicious hunks of orange fruit came from the Far East, and I don’t mean Ontario. I’m taking about Japan and we called them Japanese Oranges although we abbreviated that term somewhat to a term that I wouldn’t mention today. The arrival of those wooden boxes of once-a-year of ‘citrus reticulata’ signaled that the holiday season was finally here just as much as the first Christmas tree in a window or the first time you hear “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” playing on a store sound system. No other citrus impersonator would do then or will do now – you can taste that special, unique Mandarin Christmas Orange by just thinking about Christmas.
So my next question is: Where are all the M.C.O.’s? I have personally picked up two small boxes of clearly marked “mandarin oranges” in the past few weeks, only to find a cardboard box of small round imposters. Blasphemy! So I went on a quest. Not quite as epic as the Lord of the Rings quest or a Kind Arthur crusade and not nearly as much fun as Monty Python’s quest for the Holy Grail, but I was to determined to find at least one true holy grail mandarin Christmas orange box in our fair city. My quest was surprisingly unsuccessful.
Big box stores didn’t have any; medium box stores hadn’t received any this year; corner stores just had regular boring oranges. I even tried a couple of gas station convenience stores which didn’t have any oranges at all let alone convenient ones.
And then, after many random questular journeys involving many fruitless (sorry) visitations, the Better Half and I were enjoying a walk amongst the lovely lights in the fabulously festive City Hall park when I remembered that there was a little grocery store up on the west side of town that I hadn’t checked out.
And lo and behold, there among the lesser fruit was a small container of what appeared to be single, official, truly authentic Mandarin Christmas Oranges! We bought four of them, and when we got home we sat down and ceremoniously sampled the nostalgically delicious discovery - and – HO! HO! BAM! - Christmas had truly arrived!
I’m heading back there this afternoon to snarf up the rest of the batch, but first, I’m wishing you all a Christmas that’s truly Merry and oranges that are truly Mandarin! Happy Holidays!
Harley Hay is a Red Deer author and filmmaker. Reach out to Harley with any thoughts or ideas at harleyhay99@gmail.com.