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Every year, when I was growing up in the Santa Clara Valley, the Christmas season was heralded by a box of grapefruit from the Malone Farms in the Rio Grande Valley. While it might seem redundant to send citrus to California, it wasn’t. The grapefruit tree outside my parents’ bedroom window grew hard-fisted, pale yellow fruit, thick-rinded and so sour that even a liberal frosting of sugar made my eyes squint and my mouth purse.
Ahhh, but the fruit that arrived from South Texas was rosy hued both inside and out, the size of an overgrown softball and sweet all the way down. My mother kept the box on the back deck under the fir trees and the California fog, and we fought over those grapefruit every morning.
My great aunt sent them to us from the land of our summers. When they arrived, I heard long-shelved Texas accents creep back into play. I smelled the beaches of South Padre, the green waters of the Blanco. I saw orchards lined in palm trees, hills lined in cedar. I smelled horses and barbecue and my grandmother’s sandalwood soap. I ate sweet grapefruit and dreamed of Texas.
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Sometimes facing the crowds in the stores at Christmas can be daunting, demoralizing, and the array of options, dizzying. Desperation sometimes defines the purchase of a gift that becomes personal only in the giving. If you’re looking for something more personalized, something to awaken memories or spread itself through an evening, consider the gift of food.
Sending grapefruit 2,000 miles isn’t always an option, but offering food is, and food prompts warmth as few things do. I remember neighbors showing up at our door with Ball canning jars full of soup or plastic bags stuffed with foil-wrapped frozen tamales. Somehow the gift of food seemed so personal as if through feeding us, they were loving us.
Too busy to build the pot of soup? Consider locally made foods, gift certificates to local restaurants, a promise of tomatoes from your garden next summer. Consider a vintage plate from your local thrift shop topped off with your favorite cookbook and a promise of dinner down the road.
Consider how food fills the hunger of the memory and the hunger of the season. Give what you love to those you love. And Merry Christmas!
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