Rural Routes, Blog Version

One day away from the New Year and I realize that not once did K or I eat a Christmas orange this holiday season. Nor did we purchase any to have available as snacks.

There was a time when that would have been unthinkable.

Back when I was a child and mandarin oranges came in wooden boxes, we got one box a year. My mother counted the oranges in the crate and divided by six to see how many school lunch days they would stretch to. That last week of school before the holidays was special because of the green-paper- wrapped citrus in our lunch kits each day.

And someone was in BIG trouble if any if the counted mandarins disappeared before their time.

On Christmas Day, when we crossed the road to our grandmother’s house for dinner, there was a bowl of oranges on the coffee table in the living room. We could – and did – have has many as we wanted.

In those years Christmas was synonymous with mandarin oranges, but times have obviously changed.

What we DID have this year was a taste of Iceland’s holiday drink. Called Malt og Appelsin, it’s a mixture of malty sweet soda and orange pop. According to the can, it’s been in production since 1955 and Icelanders love it.

(As an aside, I am always amused by the fact that in the Icelandic language, orange is appelsin. It adds an entirely new dimension to the English phrase ‘comparing apples to oranges.’)

You don’t want to know how much it costs to purchase seven 0.5 litre cans of Malt og Appelsin and have them delivered to Canada. And why seven cans? Because the duties and shipping fees jumped substantially if you selected eight.

Was it worth the price tag? Definitely, both for the taste and for the experience.

++++++

We DID celebrate Christmas in the company of our adult children, which was an improvement over last year. We were not, however, able to visit in person with members of our extended family. Partly that was because of COVID; partly it was because we are at that place in our lives where many of our children have their own children or live far away and being together in one room is no longer feasible.

We DID assemble by Zoom on Christmas Eve, however, so we were able to see faces and hear voices.

Two years ago, I had never heard of Zoom. Like many of us, I am now tired of Zoom and look forward to the possibility of in-person meetings at some point in our future.

But I also think that the pandemic has forced us to adopt recent technologies that will still have value in a post-pandemic world.  People do not need to travel to Zoom meetings. They did not have to fill up their gas tanks. Meeting rooms do not need to be booked. A one-hour meeting is just that – not one hour plus another hour for travel time at either end. Particularly in rural or remote areas, this is a significant benefit.

So, while I will be pleased to attend fewer Zoom meetings and I wish for in-person meeting options, I don’t want Zoom to disappear.

++++++

Usually between Christmas and the end of the year, I set up a Christmas puzzle to complete. Not this year.

In mid-October, I was working on a puzzle I had been given as a Mother’s Day gift. I had the edges in place which as any puzzle fan knows is the first step to completion.

Then we acquired a kitten.

Now our old cat liked to come and sit on top of my partially completed puzzles. I would have to physically remove her, often several times before she took the hint.

But the kitten prefers batting the pieces around, pushing them off the table and then chasing them across the floor where most often they ended up underneath the couch. I gave up and put the puzzle away.

I do have a plan, though. It involves setting up the puzzle on my office desk and closing the door.

It all depends on whether I can withstand the piteous meows from the other side of the door.

I may not end the year with a puzzle, but I hope to start the new one that way.

Hope is always a good thing at the beginning of a new year.

-30-