There is an orange peeking out the top! |
As part of my spiritual practice, I
celebrate Winter Solstice. It can vary in date year to year, but this year, I’ll
be celebrating Solstice on December 21. I grew up, like everyone else I knew,
celebrating Christmas with my family on December 25. I observe two holidays
this month because I still celebrate Christmas. I love Christmas. I am full to
the brim of Christmas Spirit.
Happiness. Peace. Kindness. Compassion.
I celebrate Christmas as the holiday of family and humanity. I light candles at
night to honor and revere the goodness inside each and every one of us, and
wish for peace on earth, that the good will shine through. That light will win
out.
This is the time of year for
compassion. When someone wishes you a Merry Christmas, say “You, too.” If
someone wishes you a Happy Holiday, say “You, too.” If someone wishes you a
Happy Kwanzaa, say “You, too.” If someone wishes you a Merry Solstice or a
Happy Yule, say “You, too.” It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s something you
celebrate. People are wishing you good tidings in the spirit of brotherhood and
joy as dictated by their faith. Return the favor. Don’t be a Scrooge.
The Christmas Orange
In celebrating Christmas, my
favorite family tradition involved the mystery of the orange in our stockings.
While we waited for my Grandpa to drive over to our house to be with us while
we opened presents, we would empty our stockings, filled with little toys and
candies… and an orange. The memories are so strong that every time I hold an
orange in my hands and smell the citrus fragrance of the rind, I think of
Christmas morning when I would peel it open and gobble the fruit down. There
was an orange waiting for us every year.
My mom remembers having one some holidays,
but not always. It was my dad who had an orange in his stocking every year. He
said it sat on top of his stocking, hiding what was beneath it. And our oranges
served the same purpose, to better hide the surprise of what prying eyes would soon
find inside. In researching the tradition of the Christmas orange, the only
thing that was clear was that its direct origins are still a bit of a mystery.
Laura
Ingalls Wilder references getting an orange in her stocking as a child in 1880,
and that it was a special treat. According to the Food and Nutrition Encyclopedia by Audrey Ensminger, with the
advent of the new rail system, and the abundance of ripe oranges out of Florida
and California, there was a fair supply of them available to the public in the
1880s.
What a
special treat at a time of year when there isn’t a lot of other fresh fruit
available. Lucky for us, winter is the peak of harvest season for citrus.
In England, I found that putting oranges in the toes
of stockings pre-dates World War II, but became a common tradition during the
war. It must have been an especially delicious treat during rationing.
Whether
or not the use of oranges derived from the mythology of Bishop Nicholas, better
known as Saint Nicholas, is unclear to me. In modern times it is associated
with his story, and I know that it’s always easy to find correlations in
retrospect. Either way, Nicholas was a good, wealthy man born in Turkey in the
fourth century who spent his life helping the poor. Folklore says that he secreted
money into three stockings of three daughters of a man who could not afford a
good dowry and feared he would not find them good husbands. In the story, the
gold melted inside the stockings where they hung over the fireplace and the young
women pulled out three golden balls in the morning. Statues of Nicholas often show
him holding three golden globes, and many people see Christmas oranges as a
symbol of Saint Nicholas’ generosity.
Did
oranges come into vogue as a treat of the season and then become associated
with the globes of St. Nick? Or did oranges come into use because they were
seen as twins to the symbols of Saint Nicholas’s patronage? And does it matter?
I hold one in my hand and I smell Christmas kindness. I think any version of
Santa or Saint would approve.
Making Decorative Pomanders
Pomander
balls go back to the 15th century, used as natural air fresheners. To
make them, you need oranges, a lot of whole cloves, and something you can use
to pierce the skin like a toothpick, pin, nail, or wooden skewer. You can also
use citrus fruits like clementines, lemons, limes, tangerines, or kumquats (kumquats
make adorable tree-sized pomanders).
Some people like to make designs
with their cloves and others cover it with them like a second skin. For best
results, I recommend covering as much of the orange with cloves as you can as
the clove oil acts as a preservative. Use your pointy thing of choice to poke
in holes before inserting cloves (or your fingers will soon start to hurt). If
you need a guideline for your rows, you can wrap a rubber band or masking tape
around the center to get you started. You can leave room in your pattern to tie
ribbons around the orange for hanging and display. I use cotton cording that I
can weave around the cloves. Then hang the pomander in a closet for a couple of
days to allow drying time, as they can get moldy (one woman on-line said she
puts hers in her fridge, but I’ve always shut them away in a closet).
Scent-wise, these will last a few weeks.
If you want them to last through
the season, you can coat your pomander with powdered orrisroot to help preserve
it. For pomanders that both last longer and spice up your home, you can coat
your pomander in a mixture of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground ginger,
ground nutmeg, and powdered orrisroot; three tablespoons each.
In the spirit of bring things full
circle, you can keep the dried out orange husks of the pomander decorations you
make at winter solstice and turn them into rattles at summer solstice (look for
that post, coming in June of 2014).
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