Snow White and Citrus Orange

Morning Commute Walk. Denver Winter 2012. Image by Gwynne Middleton.

I know winter is on its way when the produce section at our local King Soopers starts turning a lovely shade of “citrus.” It wasn’t until my undergrad years that I made a clear connection between citrus and the winter months.

I grew up in a farming community in Alabama where snowy cotton is the big-time harvest come November and December. Our area’s satsuma, kumquat, and lemon trees only produced during the winter, but we could purchase oranges year-round at the grocery store. Nobody suggested that eating oranges during our southern summer carried with it the bitter aftertaste of a very heavy carbon footprint.

Now that I live almost smack dab in the middle of the USA, and at a high elevation to boot, there’s no getting around the fact that winter means much of the fresh produce I eat must come from a more hospitable climate.

During my childhood in Alabama, during the Christmas season, my father made a point of buying satsumas or kumquats. I was consistently incredulous. Why eat a piece of fruit when so much chocolate was readily available?

When I was old enough to pay attention to my parents’ stories, I learned my Dad’s family was poor. Christmas didn’t include presents piled beneath the trees. Nobody in his family whined when Santa didn’t bring them everything on their Christmas lists. For my father and his brothers and sister, a good Christmas haul was having some kind of meat on the table for the day and a your very own stocking filled with a few oranges and a handful of nuts. Being able to share the day with each other was the valuable but unquantifiable part of the haul as well.

While I always give my parents presents during the holidays, one of my favorite gifts to share with my Dad is a surprise stocking with fruit and nuts. It’s one of the few ways I know to tell him I appreciate his citrus orange childhood tradition and see him as more than the Dad who took care of me. In some small way, I want to help him keep close a memory of love and family time that he can no longer share with his parents and brothers and sister anymore.

I’m sad I won’t be able to travel to Alabama to spend the holidays with my parents. I’ve only missed one Middleton family Christmas since I was born, but I’m starting to plan ahead for gift giving from afar.

It’s still early enough to craft a gift or two with someone you love in mind, so I’m going to challenge you to make at least one homemade gift this holiday season for your friends or family, too. If you use Pinterest, there are no shortage of ideas on ways to make thoughtful gifts your loved ones would appreciate.

I’ll take the challenge one step further. If possible, make an edible gift. Our worlds are already so cluttered with things. Food goes away, but the memory of that gift has the power to last for years to come.

If you're looking for gift ideas, I have a few great recipes like candied orange peel, chocolate-dipped Florentine cookies, and grapefruit pound cake that keep citrus fruit front and center this time of year. Happy Holidays!