Missing My Christmas Oranges This Year

by Anita Mae Draper

Bowl of tissue-wrapped Christmas oranges

I’m missing my Christmas oranges this year. That’s not to say that we don’t have any oranges, they’re just not the same ones I relate to Christmas. Oranges and other subtropical citrus fruit aren’t grown in Canada due to our cold weather and must be shipped in and/or railed in depending on where it is grown. Historically in Canada, there was a lack of oranges in the autumn, and then a burst of excitement as oranges miraculously appeared in time for Christmas.

Easy to peel skin of a mandarin orange

The green tissue paper helped develop my anticipation for the fragrant gift inside. I loved the excitement of breaking open that first Christmas orange—the only orange I could easily peel due to the skin slipping off the flesh without effort—yet I knew that first juicy bite would have a sour snap to energize my sleepy taste buds. It was only after eating several segments that I appreciated the tangy sweetness which left me craving for more. 

Even during the tough times of my childhood, the one thing I could be sure of was finding a green tissue-wrapped orange in the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning. A bowl of oranges always held a spot on our holiday table along with other treats, such as chips and nuts. 

Christmas morning 1967, Port Arthur, Ontario

The fact that the oranges came all the way across the Pacific from exotic Japan added to their seasonal appeal. But this year, I'm really craving them because I can't find any of the Japanese ones, and not many of the Chinese variety, either. Yes, we have the larger types of navel oranges and others, but it seems we've seen less of the original Japanese oranges, and even the Chinese mandarins each December. Now, the small tangerines and clementines compete for space throughout the year, yet some of them have so many seeds, and skin so thick I almost wreck my thumbnail breaking through the surface to peel it. 

So I started wondering what happened. I was hoping my research would give a definite reason, such as a Pacific typhoon, the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami combination, or even a trading dispute. Instead, my search led me on a different quest—the history of what Canadians call the Christmas orange.

I knew that the Christmas orange was first brought to Canada about 1890 by Japanese workers who received them in parcels in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I was quite surprised then, to find that the first mention of them was not in a Canadian newspaper, but in a 1901 and 1916 American one.

In Canada, the oranges were shipped across the Pacific in 9 pound wooden crates and unloaded in Vancouver.

Christmas mandarin oranges being unloaded from the ship, S.S. American Mail. VPL Accession Number: 81110. Courtesy of Vancouver Public Library

I found a 1926 article in the Montreal Gazette reporting that 1,452,000 oranges filling eleven Canadian National rail cars were on their way from Vancouver, British Columbia on Canada's west coast. So approx 40 yrs after the first oranges came across, a special train was used to carry the shipment across the nation.

The Montreal Gazette - Dec 4, 1926

The Japanese orange trade was so successful that a 1931 Drummondville, Quebec newspaper, reporting on an article from the Canadian prairie province of Manitoba, said that over 2 million oranges crossed the citrus-starved Canadian landscape by Dec 7th of that year.

The Drummondville Spokesman - Dec 7, 1931

And then Canada joined WW 2 and Japan was our enemy. The trans-Pacific orange shipments stopped, and Canadian parents told their children that everything was fine. But Christmas wasn't the same. Even with the availability of tangerines shipped in from Florida, Canadians felt the loss of their beloved Christmas orange. 

When the war ended, countries worked to restore their economies and Canada renewed trade with Japan. But Canadians felt the loss of their fathers, uncles, brothers, and all those servicemen and women who'd given their lives for freedom... and resentment against the people of Japan was hard to put down. 

Japanese oranges were scarce during the 1947 Christmas season, but by 1948 they were back with a new name. In an attempt to take the onus off their origin, they were re-introduced simply as mandarin oranges.  

CP Rail Mandarin Orange Express train

The mandarin orange express trains had special markings, yet only one car carried this paint scheme in a shipment of almost 60 cars. We didn't care what they were called or where they were from, our special Christmas orange was back—more than 3 shiploads of them filling over 32 freight cars that year. And that was just the beginning of the resurgence of its popularity.

Which brings me back to my original question... what happened to our favourite Christmas orange since it's rare to see a crate of the boxes sitting in a grocery store these days.

Are oranges a traditional part of your Christmas? Did you receive one in your stocking?

This post was originally published on the Inkwell Inspirations blog on Dec 16, 2015.

As this is my final post for the wonderful Heroes, Heroines, and History Blog, I want to share my sincere appreciation for all the readers and contributors who made this such a great place to be a part of during the past seven years. 

Merry Christmas and may God bless you richly this holiday season and in the coming year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anita Mae Draper lives on the Canadian prairies where she uses her experience and love of history to enhance her stories of yesteryear's romance with realism and faith. Readers can enrich their story experience with visual references by checking Anita's Pinterest boards. All links available on her website at www.anitamaedraper.com

Tidbits of Christmas Dinner Menu

I hope you had a joyous Christmas. Below are 6 Christmas Dinner Menus Published in 1891 by Table Talk Publishing Company. I've included the comments before and after the recipes so you can see the spirit of the publication. Note the end comment on decorations, quite tasteful imho.

A portion of our pleasure is derived from the hosts of good things we have to eat, consequently let us have as good a Christmas dinner as we can afford; have it served nicely and newly. I will give some five or six menus, running from the elaborate to the very simple:
Menu No. 1
Blue Points on Half Shell, Salted Almonds, Olives
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Soup Crecy
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Boiled Red Snapper Oyster Sauce, Potatoes Parsley Sauce
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Roasted Capon Truffle Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, Roasted Goose Potatoe Stuffing, Apple Sauce, Peas Scalloped Tomatoes
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Punch
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Canvas-Back Duck Currant Jelly, Baked Macaroni
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Tiny Lobster Cutlets, with Lettuce with French Dressing, Toasted Water Thins
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English Plum Puddings
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Coffee
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Raisins Fruit Nuts, Sugar Plums

Menu No. 2
Clear Soup
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Salted Almonds Olives
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Diamond-Back Terrapin Saratoga Chips
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Roasted Turkey Oyster Stuffing, Grape Jelly, Potato Croquettes Peas
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Ginger Sherbet
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Partridges served on Fried Mush, Cranberry Sauce
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Asparagus Salad, Wafers Brie
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English Plum Pudding, Coffee, Nuts Raisins Fruits Sugar Plums
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Menu No. 3
Bisque of Tomato
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Turkey Bread Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, Roasted Potatoes Browned Sweets, Peas
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Mayonnaise of Celery, Toasted Crackers Cheese
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Mince Pie Lemon Custard, Coffee
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Nuts Raisins Fruits Sugar Plums
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Menu No. 4
Cream of Corn Soup
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Roasted Goose Potato Stuffing, Fried Apples, Mashed Sweet Potatoes Cauliflower
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Lettuce and Boiled Chestnuts, with French Dressing, Wafers
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Suet & Fruit Pudding, Coffee
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Nuts Raisins Fruits Sugar Plums
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Menu No. 5
Chicken Broth with Rice
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Roasted Duck Onion Stuffing, Browned Turnips Peas
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Chicken Pie
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Mayonnaise of Celery, Wafers Neufchatel
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Charlotte Russe, Coffee, Nuts Raisins Fruits Sugar Plums
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Menu No. 6
Cream of Celery Soup
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Roasted Chicken Bread Stuffing, Oyster Sauce, Mashed Potatoes,Browned Baked Macaroni
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Lettuce Salad, French Dressing, Crackers Cheese
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Mince Pies Cranberry Tart
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Coffee
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Nuts Raisins Candy
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Let the table be arranged as prettily as possible. An attractive and inexpensive decoration is made from white china silk and holly berries. Crumple the silk in graceful folds in the centre of the table. Break the twigs containing the berries from the branch , and put them in the folds of the silk. Do not have any other decorations on the table, save a twig of mistletoe at each place. The dining room should be decorated with green, and if convenient, have a small round side table covered, first with a white cloth and then entirely with ferns, stems running to the centre. Have in this centre a pretty basket of fruit, the handle covered with holly. In front of the mantle, if space will permit, have two pretty palms, met with a flow of green from the mantle itself. Holly and ground pine make the most appropriate Christmas decorations.


Lynn A. Coleman is an award winning & best-selling author who makes her home in Keystone Heights, Florida, with her husband of 42 years. Lynn's latest novella available this month. The Rails to Love Romance Collection Her story is titled "Love on the Rails"

Holidays on the Homefront

by Cara Putman

Christmas 1943 was a slog up the boot of Italy for Allied soldiers. Knee deep in mud, the fighting couldn’t have been more intense or miserable. The Germans had the high ground, and the Allies had to slog up hill, after hill, after hill in their slow march from Sicily.

 by Cara Putman

As I studied the Italian campaign, I realized just how much I had overlooked. You see, I’ve long been a World War II history buff. There’s something about that generation that Tom Brokaw dubbed the Greatest Generation that resonates with me. My grandparents and their generation did what needed to be done, with no thought to an alternative. They just did what it took.

On the homefront, that meant rationing was in full effect. Sugar cookies disappeared to be replaced by sweeteners like molasses. Still ladies in North Platte, Nebraska, and surrounding towns, saved their precious sugar so that the boys going through on the Union Pacific troop trains could have birthday cakes. If there wasn’t a birthday, then the ladies would select some young man in uniform and offer him the cake.

Women would knit socks and scarves for the boys slogging around Europe. Children conducted scrap drives, hauling their wagons throughout neighborhoods. War bonds were bought with every spare penny…all in an effort to win this all-encompassing war.

In the spring of 1944, things would slowly begin to change in Italy. The Allies would begin to make progress after some blunders like the bombing of Monte Cassino. Now, Monuments Men would work alongside the fighting forces to preserve Western civilization from this first war with widespread aerial bombardment. In Rome, the Germans left without bombing the cathedrals while in Florence they destroyed priceless bridges and buildings during their exit.

In June the day after Rome was liberated, D-Day occurred on the beaches of Normandy. Attention shifted to the European mainland as the battle continued. Everyone hoped this meant the war was near an end. But as winter and another Christmas approached, the Allied troops slogged through yet another harsh season of fighting. The Battle of the Bulge was another brutal fight through blizzards and fierce cold in the forests leading to Germany.

Yet on they fought.

On the homefront continued.

Every forward. The commitment was total and complete.

As the calendar turns to 2014, I pray we never forget. So many of the 70^th anniversaries in WWII are occurring right now. May we remember the destruction at Monte Cassino in February. May we rejoice at the peaceful liberation of Rome in June even as we honor those who died valiantly on the beaches of Normandy. May we celebrate the art recovered in the hills of Tuscany as we mourn the destruction of those bridges in Florence.

And may we never forget the sacrifices the Greatest Generation made so that we could enjoy the freedom we have today.

_______________

Cara C. Putman graduated high school at 16, college at 20, and completed her law degree at 27. An award-winning author of seventeen books with more on the way, she is active in women's ministry at her church and is a lecturer on business and employment law to graduate students at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. Putman also practices law and is a second-generation homeschooling mom. Putman is currently pursuing her Master’s in Business Administration at Krannert. She serves on the executive board of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), an organization she has served in various roles since 2007. She lives with her husband and four children in Indiana. You can connect with her online at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/caraputman

Twitter: www.twitter.com/cara_putman

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/caraputman

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/CaraPutman

Purchase links:

Christianbook.com: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?event=AFF&p=1141766&item_no=681783

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shadowed-by-grace-cara-putman/1115951174?ean=9781433681783

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1433681781/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1433681781&linkCode=as2&tag=carput-20

About the book:

Rachel Justice is desperate to save her dying mother. She doesn’t want to leave her, but she accepts her newspaper’s assignment to travel to Italy and photograph war images. No one knows her photography is a cover and that Rachel is really seeking to find the father she never knew, hopeful to get some help with her failing mother. Dedicated to her mission, Rachel is focused on completing it. Soon, though, she finds her priorities and plans changing when she is assigned to Lt. Scott Lindstrom, on mission as a Monument Man. Their meeting will have far-reaching consequences. Will this derail her plans? Will she ever find her father? Is her faith enough to carry her through?

People can read the first chapter here: http://caraputman.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Shadowed-by-Grace-chapter-excerpt.pdf

CHRISTMAS DURING THE 1920s

ANNE GREENE here. 

The 1920s ushered in significant changes in American life. Most Americans acquired their first radios and automobiles and achieved the highest standard of living in the nation's history.

The celebration of Christmas changed as well. President Calvin Coolidge celebrated with the first national Christmas tree in the White House. He lit the sixty-foot fir in an impressive ceremony in 1923.

Cotton ornaments, inexpensive and unbreakable, enjoyed great popularity. By the late 1920s, however, Americans imported spectacular glass ornaments from Germany. In the 1920s, advertisers standardized the popular image of Santa Claus, originally created by German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast.

The Friend Telegraph on December 11, 1925, remarked in an editorial entitled "How Times Change": In Christmas seasons gone by, it was not considered good form for a young man to give his best girl articles of wearing apparel. To do so indicated that her people neglected to clothe her. A man’s gift had to be an album, a toilet set or something along that line.

In the 1920s Christmas giving grew more sensible giving the recipient gifts they could use. People bought more for the home. Rather than pictures and mementos, a chair, a new rug, dishes or silverware, labor-saving devices and even new-fangled cooking utensils became favorite gifts. “Give a woman something serviceable to wear or something she can use in her home and you gladden her heart. Give a man something for his auto, or something he can wear besides neckties, and you win his thanks.”

The 1920s became the age of flapper fashion and jazz music. New fashions in art and architecture, from art deco to modernism jumped into fashion. Frank Lloyd Wright built his ultra-modern homes. In 1927, Lindbergh made the first flight across the Atlantic. Hot toys included die-cast metal toys, the Raggedy Ann doll, and, toward the end of the decade, the yo-yo.

A Christmas Budget in the 1920s purchased such items as:

A Persian rug: $40.00

Winter overcoat: $18.50

Fountain pen: $2.50

Silk hat: $7.50

RCA Radiola: $115.00

RCA Radiola with loudspeaker: $150.00

One-pound box of chocolates: $6.50

Ladies’ silk umbrella: $10.00

Toy tool chest: $1.55

Juvenile model bicycle: $48.75

Girls’ ice skates: $5.00

Beautiful jointed doll with wig, dress, shoes, and stockings: $1.95. 

Victrola brand phonograph: $99.80.

One of the most popular dances, the Charleston, lent its name to a dress completely covered in fringe, that would move and shake along with the body's movement, revealing the legs. This embroidered or shawled dress invaded all of high society. These were the Fitzgerald years, and many of the period's actresses wore these fringed dresses in either short or long versions. This would make a popular Christmas gift.

In the News in the 1920s:

Prohibition Made Its Presence Felt:

Shortly after the Volstead Act went into effect, federal authorities issued an announcement that America’s newspapers included in the Christmas Eve edition: The use fermented wines for sacramental purposes during religious services is forbidden.

At an elite Christmas party attended by Charming H. Cox, the governor of Massachusetts, prohibition agent Harold Wilson seized four bottles of White Horse Cellar whiskey. A major scandal ensued, and the bottles disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Headline of an article in the December 5, 1926, Providence Journal, urged procrastinating wives to show more thought during the holiday season. The article is accompanied by an illustration of an unnamed acquaintance who dreaded Christmas and spent the holiday in bed, with ice-bags at her head and feet.

Christmas Advertising in the 1920s:

(In 1897 Francis P Church, Editor of the New York Sun, wrote an editorial in response to a letter from an eight year-old girl, Virginia O'Hanlon. She had written the paper asking whether there really was a Santa Claus. It became known as the Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus letter.)

So by the 1920's the image of Santa had been standardized to portray a bearded, over-weight, jolly man dressed in a red suit with white trim.

Santa suggested the newspaper reader enjoy the following for Christmas dinner: Tradition dictated fowl, cranberry sauce, and mince pie or Christmas pudding, plus the usual items not absolutely required by rule, such as stuffing with the fowl, and rich giblet gravy, sweet and Irish potatoes, some kind of salad, fruit cake and Mincemeat pie. All these items could now be purchased at your local grocers.

Christmas Traditions in the 1920s:

Home-made Christmas cards became popular. They were often unusual shapes and constructed with foil and ribbon. These cards were too delicate to send through the post and people delivered them by hand. A gift of Christmas cookies accompanied the card.

The tradition of hanging the Christmas stocking was thought to arise from the following story: A poor man had three daughters. He was so destitute, he didn’t have enough money for a dowry, so his daughters couldn't marry. (A dowry is money paid to the bridegroom by the bride’s parents on the wedding day.)

One night, Nicholas secretly dropped a bag of gold down the chimney and into the house. The bag fell into a stocking that had been hung by the fire to dry! This meant the oldest daughter had a dowry and could marry.

The same gift was repeated later with the second daughter. Determined to discover the person who had given him the money, the father hid by the fire until he caught Nicholas dropping down a bag of gold. Nicholas begged the man not to tell anyone what he’d done, because he didn’t want to bring attention to himself.

But soon the news got out, and when anyone received a secret gift, he thought that Nicolas gave the gift. Because of his kindness, the church proclaimed Nicholas a Saint.

Besides the many unfamiliar Christmas songs filling the air, Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, and Let It Snow, Let It Snow were popular. And, of course, people sang the Christmas Carols we all know.

Christmas really was not so different from the way we celebrate Christmas today.

Which one of those 1920s gifts would you have given the man in your life? Leave a comment for a chance to win Anne’s newest release, MARRIAGE BY ARRANGEMENT.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. Her second novel, a Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage, won the New England Reader Choice award, the Laurel Wreath Award, and the Heart of Excellence Award. The sequel Marriage By Arrangement released in November, 2013.  A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. She makes her home in McKinney, Texas. Tim LaHaye led her to the Lord when she was twenty-one and Chuck Swindoll is her Pastor. View Anne’s travel pictures and art work at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books at http://www.PelicanBookGroup.com. Or http://www.Amazon.com.

Visit http://www.anneswritingupdates.blogspot.com for information on writing an award-winning novel.