I always thought my mom’s tradition of putting an orange in the bottom of everyone’s stocking was a waste of perfectly usable stocking space, and I told her so every Christmas. She explained that growing up oranges were a special treat, and as a child, one of the magical joys of Christmas. As a kid I found that hard to believe, but it makes sense to me now. In an era before refrigeration and mass transportation, everyone ate locally. You knew your farmer, and you ate what was in season, and I can certainly imagine how exciting something as exotic as an orange, grown in a faraway place by total strangers would be to a small child. I’ll likely never know the thrill of such “exotic” food, as now everything is shipped everywhere and available any time of year. Probably the closest I could come to that kind of culinary thrill is tasting something that is just absurdly expensive.
On one of the first Christmases that I spent away from home, my mom sent me a small package, labeled very clearly “not to be opened until Christmas morning”. I should have known what it was, but it was small enough, and light enough, that I didn’t think about it, I just stuck it in the bottom of my backpack as a friend and I headed out to hike the Kalalau Trail on the Na Pali coast of Kauai.
The hike was strenuous but the views and the beach at the end of that hike were absolutely stunning. A mile of pristine sandy beach nestled between the ocean and the cliffs of the Kalalau Valley. The place was completely deserted except for a couple we could see setting up their tent at the far end of the beach.
It was a surreal spot for a New Englander to spend Christmas eve. I fell asleep on the beach, under the stars, to the sound of a 300-foot waterfall thundering into the ocean below.
I awoke, just before dawn on Christmas morning, when the unnerving sound of waves coming in way too close and way too fast, pierced my consciousness. We quickly moved to the elevated safety of the dunes and waited for sunrise.
As the sun came up, we could see that the couple down the beach had not been so lucky. They lost everything to that rogue wave. It had swept them away while they were zipped up and sound asleep inside their tent. They managed to get out of their tent and swim to shore but lost everything they had brought with them. They were completely traumatized, but very happy to be alive.
The four of us walked the beach trying to retrieve anything we could find in the roiling surf. We recovered a tent pole, a hiking boot, and a couple random things, but there was actually very little the ocean was willing to give up. At some point we stopped looking, sat down, and with a deep sense of gratitude for just being alive, we wished each other a Merry Christmas...
We eventually left the couple there on the beach - shoe-less, and still wearing their wet pajamas- promising to contact the park ranger as soon as we got back to our car, so that a helicopter would be sent in to air lift them out. Before we left, though, I opened the package from my mom. My “Christmas Orange” looked pathetic, alone in that box, with no stocking, wrapping paper, or gifts to keep it company - but split four ways, that orange tasted every bit as exotic, as my mom had always claimed them to be
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