Christmas cheer

ocasiocasa sends warm wishes during the most beautiful and glorious season of the year

On Christmas Eve, my daughter gave me a dozen lovely roses. The day before, she and I had been reminiscing about one of my favorite stories I used to read to her and her brothers every December. It was called The Legend of the Christmas Rose by Selma Lagerlöf---a Swedish novelist, who in 1909 became the first woman writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. You can read the story here if you would like - http://www.archive.org/stream/legendofchristma00lage

One year, we made silk marionettes of all the characters in the story and retold it as a puppet play at our Christmas family gathering. I remember it being very cute and charming. I still have the puppets, but what I really hope is that we filmed it on video, and have that somewhere also.

So, later on Christmas day, Jeff and I were relaxing outside, on our deck. The sun was very low, the kids had gone off to see a movie, and there, through the trees, we spotted several bright yellow grapefruits. What’s so surprising about this is that we didn’t even know we had a grapefruit tree! I know that sounds odd, but we live under an oak hammock (where many oak trees create a ceiling of branches) and although we have quite a few wild citrus trees that just popped up on their own, it was always too shady for fruit to grow. At least none ever had in the dozen years we have lived here. So Jeff grabbed a ladder, and without falling into the creek below him, managed to pick all of them---twelve big, beautiful grapefruits. What a gift!

We brought them inside and started juicing; it tasted incredible. Added a bit of Swedish vodka (because we deserved it) and toasted to a perfectly splendid day which we were extremely grateful for.
I hope yours was equally as special.
~dale