December 22, 2004
From P.W.
That last paragraph reminded me of when I was a "little" kid in Germany. Homemade
cookies and candies is what we usually got but one Christmas we had an orange. Never
had one before then. It was so sweet and special and one of those reddish ones that you
can occasionally get here. I can still taste it to this day almost 60 years later. Just
one orange between the three of us. Awesome!

Thank you, P., for sharing what you so vividly recalled from your childhood: the first time eating an orange. I can remember the first time I ate a Clementine when we were in Belgium several years ago. Now they are commonplace even here. But I was happy to be someone who knew what they were when they first started showing up in our grocery stores. I love a ripe orange. And during Christmas time, we love sweet Clementines. We get pretty sick of them by February, however. Isn't that a shame? What a tragedy to begin to take for granted anything, yet all of us do. How many of us thanked the Lord when we woke up breathing? Well, maybe you did, but I didn't remember until this instant. Anyone who gets used to the ocean, well, I say phooey on them. But I suppose if you woke up and saw it every day, it would start to feel like the sun rising and setting--something you become so used to that you stop noticing and feeling grateful that it happened again.

And so it is with Christmas presents and oranges.