Oranges are a winter treat

Cat Campbell/For The Madera Tribune

You don’t have to wait for a holiday to enjoy some home-baked cranberry orange shortbread cookies.

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Luckily, my mom has a big orange tree in her back yard, and it’s always so nice to look out and see the bright orange of the fruit. Even better is to enjoy the taste and juiciness of this citrus fruit.

I remember my grandfather telling me that when he was a kid, it was a real treat to get an orange in your Christmas stocking. He told me that way back when I was a kid, and at the time, I thought it was strange for kids to get excited about something so common as an orange. But I didn’t stop to think that when he was a kid, oranges were not common at all.

Being excited over an orange kind of reminds me of another childhood memory. My cousins, sister and I would roam door-to-door for our annual trick-or-treat fun in October. Many of the older people who answered the door would drop walnuts into our bags. That was another custom we kids failed to appreciate. We wanted candy and nothing else was good enough.