The other day my wife and I were talking about holiday traditions we can carry over from our childhoods into our new family and I mentioned my family’s tradition of putting an orange in the toe of our stockings every year (among many other odds and ends). The tradition made me realize that the orange really lucked out as the fruit-of-choice for goofy stuff to put in a stocking. After all, if watermelon is red, green, and white – the three colors of the holiday season – shouldn’t it have a more prominent place in the holiday?
I’m not suggesting watermelons in stockings – that’d need a pretty big sock – but if you take the time to learn about the origins of the orange as a gift, it’s actually kind of weird (something about St. Nicholas and balls of gold and three sisters who were too poor to marry). In this day and age, when people wear hideous sweaters in public simply because they’re red, green and white, shouldn’t a delicious fruit with the same color scheme have a little more representation during the season?
As far as I know, the watermelon is the only fruit on the planet that’s red, green and white, yet it somehow got snubbed as a holiday staple. Sure, it’s probably because winter is the “off season” for watermelon, but that’s also true of many other fruits … like oranges.
I’ve been around long enough to understand that weird holiday traditions aren’t just handed down for no reason. There’s usually a fable or legend attached to the tradition, which is why I’m going to invent my own legend about the holidays and watermelon in the hope that, in true rumor mill style, it will catch on and be accepted as fact.
With that in mind, Thursday’s entry will be a watermelon legend of epic holiday proportions. Because of today’s blog entry, regular What About Watermelon readers will be in on the ruse, but people searching online for watermelon legends will be led directly to that entry, and not this one revealing my true intentions.
With any luck, my plan will work, and watermelon will soon have its place as a traditional holiday offering … at least in my house.