When I was a kid, my mom always went a little crazy for the holidays.
It was like . . .
Yes, it is fucking freezing cold and we are living in half of our house. We are heating with wood and coal and we have blankets hung up to keep the heat in this room. And yes, the stovepipes do periodically crash to the floor so that this room fills with choking gray-black smoke. And yes, these oven mitts are to catch and reassemble those pipes when they fall. And yes, these oven mitts are also to open the door to this same single fireplace and slide sideways into the fire whatever food we may be trying to cook for your dinner tonight. And yes, we will be sitting on this bed right here to eat that food. And yes, the water pipes are frozen. And yes, we live in some version of hell. But damn it, the holidays are coming!
My mother spent a lot of time during the holidays each year pretending that our family was all normal.
We must be normal, because look!
Clove oranges!
One of my mom’s favorite things to do for the holidays.
It wasn’t very complicated. You took an orange and you stabbed it full of cloves. And then you tied a piece of ribbon around the orange and hung it from a nail my dad had pounded into a doorframe.
If you were all artistic like my mom, you could make lovely stripes and patterns in the orange with the cloves . . . resulting in gorgeous creations.
But guess what?
Cloves are way fucking hard to push through the tough outer rind of a Michigan holiday orange. Way fucking hard.
I would take a handful of cloves and an orange, and I would sit down happily next to my mom. I would carefully select a perfect star-shaped clove and shove its point hard with my thumb into the rind of the orange. I would hold the cloved orange up to my face, breathing deeply of its heady mixed fragrances.
That single clove? Shoving that single clove into the orange? Had hurt my thumb.
Ow.
Hmmmm.
No way my mom was going to let me hang an orange with only one clove in it.
So I shoved in a couple more cloves.
Ow ow ow ow ow ow.
I shook my hand out.
My siblings gave up and handed their oranges over to my mom to finish.
This seemed to make her sad, and so I would decide that I was going to work through the pain. I was going to make something beautiful. My mom would be all proud and the holidays would be saved!
A little sacrifice in the name of joy. Totally worth it.
Shove. Ow. Shove. Ow. Shove. Ow. Shove. Ow.
Goddamn it, those sharp little clovey fuckers hurt!
Slowly, and in excruciating pain, I would line my orange with thick holiday stripes of cloves.
Tears would come to my eyes. I would try to use other fingers, but really? The thumb was required. I would keep sucking the bitter orange-peel juice off of my thumb, trying to heal my thumb with my tongue.
It felt like I should be bleeding, but I was not bleeding.
It hurt so much.
So much.
Shove. Ow. Shove. Ow. Shove. Ow.
Agony.
When we were done, and the oranges were hung around the room?
My mom would look so happy.
Totally worth it.
My thumb would hurt for days afterwards.
But our house smelled of holidays and magic.
Totally worth it.
OK, so now flash-forward to a few years ago. An invitation from a friend to come over and make some holiday decorations. The first thing I see when I arrive is that my friend has a large bowl of oranges and a smaller bowl of cloves. I haven’t made clove oranges since I was a child, but just the sight of the oranges and the cloves?
Made my thumbs hurt.
This was going to be the craft-date from hell.
Sigh.
Seriously, my head hurt at the thought of asking my daughters to push cloves through the rind of an orange with their thumbs. My thumbs hurt in anticipation of what was to come. I felt like crying.
My friend passed out the oranges. She passed out the cloves.
And then?
She handed each child a fork.
A fork to poke holes into which the cloves could then easily be placed.
What . . . the . . . fuck?
I was speechless.
Completely speechless.
Both Maj and Kallan made beautiful cloved oranges.
Happily and easily.
I was speechless.
When we got home, I called my mom. Explained.
“So what the hell, Mom? Why didn’t we use something to poke holes into the oranges? We had forks. Why did we kill ourselves every year over those oranges? What the hell?”
My mom laughed, “But nothing good is easy. Think of the useful lesson you learned.”
“What lesson would that be, Mom? That anything beautiful or worth doing is going to hurt like hell?”
She laughed some more, “Exactly! That lesson.”
There was angry silence on my end for a minute, which my mom interrupted, “It sure would have been easier to use a fork, though. That never once occurred to me. I was pretty stupid when you were a kid.”
Sigh.
She laughed again, “Good thing I can play it off as a lesson.”
Thanks, Mom.
And so today?
With a fork to poke the holes?
Cloved oranges smell like the holidays to me.
And the holidays smell like my mom. They smell of love and pain and wanting. Of sacrifice and stubbornness and denial and agony and secrets and the need to pretend.
Yes, just like that.
Sigh.
I was wondering why you didn’t just use something to make it easier to push in…and then you wrapped up my question. I haven’t done this since I was a tiny child….like 4 maybe. I might do that this year. Using a fork, of course.
Sometimes?
When you are trapped in a tiny little box?
Thinking outside of the box is somehow out of the question.
Seriously.
I think you just described my life, in general, with that reply.
Hey, you!
I see you.
Yeah.
Hell yeah!! thljathatljatljakjhlakjelh;laktj;kljadklja <—– those were my fingers doing a happy dance since I was the first to comment.
Yay, you!
*sigh* I remember when I was the first to come. And all you ladies are thinking, “Pffffftttt…Men. Always coming first.”
Just generally?
We like it when you wait a bit.
Come a little later.
After we’ve gotten things started.
Conversationally, I mean.
Dirty you.
Oh, don’t you worry. I may not be coming, but I am watching. Always watching. The conversation, I mean.
Dirty you.
Ooooh, you are excellent.
So, it was a “What the fork?” moment?
You and Mark think alike!
Yes, that’s what he said when I told him this story.
Snort!
Sigh indeed.
Sometimes I sit here after reading one of your posts and I just can’t find the words with which to comment. I am faced with that again today.
Funny how something can come back so clearly and so unexpectedly.
That happens.
It happens to me sometimes.
Moments in which I find I have no words.
Love you, babe.
Ahh, Jami’s comment has me laughing.
I have never heard of “cloved oranges”, so yes I had to google it. They are pretty, and I can only imagine the smell. And the pain. Jesus.
The pain?
Excruciating.
Yay!
Christmas!
Sigh.
have i mentioned i read and remember with my nose? It’s true. You just brought my grandmother’s house on christmas eve to me in a flash that brought tears. Thank you.
Oh, I hope that was a lovely memory that brought your tears.
Yes, I have a very strong memory for scents as well.
Certain scents?
Just overwhelm me.
Hmmmmm Never done this. Maybe I will make it into a science lesson on force and resistance. Us homeschoolers are clever like that. ;) Which I know you already know from experience.
Speaking of which why’d ya quit?
Home-schooling was a temporary solution.
We had no acceptable public school option in Vallejo, and the private school the girls had been attending stopped working for us.
So we home-schooled for a year and a half as we looked for ways to move out of Vallejo.
Which we did.
And then we sent the girls to the public school here in Lake Oswego.
So far? That’s been working out fabulously.
I wondered. You have mentioned it but not completely elaborated. Or if you did I have mommy brain. Thanks for the science lesson. lol
I spoke about it.
But as we left friends who are now attending the schools which we found objectionable?
I haven’t spoken in detail.
Oh you are so much nicer than me. I screamed to the heavens the problems with our school district. But it’s pretty public knowledge they’re under about a dozen lawsuits.
My hesitance is more out of a sense of respect for the families who are making those schools work for them.
The problems with Vallejo’s school system?
Not a secret.
At all.
Everyone knows here too. But the large majority shrug it off and say it’s not really happening in my kids classroom. It’s exasperating.
The time I told you about threatening a teacher. She’s very handsy and rough with her kindergarten class but everyone looks the other way cause she’s been there for so long. I was like nope not happening. You leave a handprint on my child again and I will kill you. And I sincerely meant that. (She was not his teacher but she had him at recess duty and put him on the wall for not knowing his bday the second month of kindergarten. The only recess he’s ever missed. Then when she got in trouble she grabbed my son in the hallway to “correct” him.)
Yes, I remember this discussion.
And how you did not back down. I remember this well.
Vallejo problems are more about money.
Or rather, the absolute lack of it.
Yeah we got that too. In spades which is also part of the problem and the lawsuits. We can’t move but it’s alright we love homeschooling.
Run out of room on this thread.
I will just say that when there is no money at all?
There is not much else of value either.
In my opinion.
Ouch indeed. As always – a beauty of a post!
Thanks, lovely you.
I owe you an email.
Later this evening, probably.
Laughed out loud (but not lol) at the tag about clove oranges being the Devil’s work unless he lets you use his pitchfork.
Flippin’ hilarious!
Your tags are pure genius!
I am also laughing because, like your mother, it never dawned on me to use anything to pre-poke holes in the damn orange.
Even with this knowledge? It’s too late. I don’t ever want to see another cloved orange as long as I live.
The girls love them.
And so ever since my friend showed them how to make the clove oranges?
We make them every year.
And every year, I tell my sad story.
And my daughters laugh incredulously.
Sigh.
I remember those. Though I don’t remember them being that hard to make.
But then we probably got the oranges from the neighbor’s tree. And it was 70 degrees outside. Since I grew up in the Bay Area
Snow? What is snow? :)
Yes, that’s why I pointed out that the holiday oranges of my youth?
Thick tough rinds.
Not from a neighbor’s yard.
Not in 70 degree weather.
Not even.
Yeah, I actually know the oranges you are talking about. That came from the store and were expensive.
We didn’t waste them on clove oranges. They were for eating. The neighbors sour oranges – those were good for clove oranges and juice that you add sugar to.
and when it got down to 50, I was very happy I had my hand-me-down coat. And we were lucky because even when things got really bad, we had enough heat to not be cold (with a sweater on) But then it is cheaper to heat a house when the outside temperature is 40 to 50 than when the outside temperature is 0 or less.
And the forks – I may have to try that since my neighbors don’t have orange trees :)
I have many memories of childhood poverty.
And many of them are set against the backdrop of bone-chilling horrific cold.
Yeah.
Good times.
Good times.
I really feel the need to buy you a space heater.
I hate the cold. That’s why I live in the desert. And someday I will live in Arizona where it stays warm almost all year round
Guess what?
I have a space heater, and I HATE using it.
Because if I warm a small space around me and get all happy?
I can no longer roam about the rest of the house, because in comparison?
The rest of the house is freezing cold.
Sigh.
lol so true. I am in my nice warm toasty office that gets the afternoon sun now, but I need to go down to the cold kitchen and start the roast for dinner.
Not looking forward to it, but then once I start the roast, the kitchen will be all warm too. And if I empty the dishwasher, my hands will warm up. See I’m bribing myself to do housework.
I really should have thought twice before I bought this big house with high ceilings. It just didn’t look like it would be cold in the 100 degree July heat.
Next house will be a cavelike place. In Arizona.
Yes, I have the space heater down her in the basement with me at this very moment.
The dogs are all happy.
None of us is going to pleased when the girls get home in just a few minutes and demand that we move to the main part of the house.
Annoying.
There are things I want to say. But I don’t know that it’s right. Maybe I’m just not finding my words today.
Anyway, just know I’m here. Reading. Loving your words.
You are always welcome to email me, babe.
If you like.
You have my email address.
But either way?
Thank you.
I may. Later. I am not making sense today.
I have never made a clove orange before. Maybe something new to try for decorating this year.
I will definitely use a fork or toothpick though! ;)
How sweet you were to tough it out and make your clove orange with your Mom!
Yes, definitely use a fork!
And sweetness?
Didn’t play that much of a role.
But I like your version!
ok i kinda remember this, but i thought you guys were just crazy. i also remember the santa you lovingly recreated every year a round shaped santa with a cotton puff beard…do you remember?
frances is upstairs taking a break. i hear her telling ginger that the holidays are coming so she must dress up as a cheshire cat. also that i must be very careful because she is playing her drums…not sure what this means. olive said doggy today, first time.
Of course I remember that Santa!
Every year, his beard would be grimed and ruined by the smoke and dirt of the holiday season.
And so each year? We would rip off the old filthy stuff and replace his beard with new white fluffy cotton.
Of course I remember that!
Olive is growing up at the speed of light.
Just so you know.
Today’s theme: Holiday pain.
Were my mom still alive, she’d be wondering how to use that dilbo to make clove oranges. She’d wait until there was a large gathering to discuss it out loud.
Do you wonder what stories you kids will tell about you later? My oldest is nearly 30… I unfortunately already know some of the stories he tells about HIS mom.
I loved your dilbo post.
Loved it.
And my daughters have so many stories to tell about me.
So many.
Lucky them!
Lucky me.
Sigh.
I’ve never made a clove orange but I have been in therapy for 28 years and I think I can say that between this post and the storyteller post, I think I understand how you tick. That is all!
There is an awful lot of me here on Pretty All True.
I am more than these two posts.
But yes . . . these two posts do say a lot about who I am.
But that is not all.
Oh I didn’t mean to infer that I totally get you and that you are a sum of just those two posts. Although I have plenty to say, I am predominantly, an observer.
If you are planning on unleashing the force of your 28 years of therapy on me?
Email, babe.
Snort!