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\u2019s 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 \u2013 the three colors of the holiday season \u2013 shouldn\u2019t it have a more prominent place in the holiday?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not suggesting watermelons in stockings \u2013 that\u2019d need a pretty big sock \u2013 but if you take the time to learn about the origins of the orange as a gift, it\u2019s actually kind of weird<\/span> (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\u2019re red, green and white, shouldn\u2019t a delicious fruit with the same color scheme have a little more representation during the season?<\/p>\n As far as I know, the watermelon is the only fruit on the planet that\u2019s red, green and white, yet it somehow got snubbed as a holiday staple. Sure, it\u2019s probably because winter is the \u201coff season\u201d for watermelon, but that\u2019s also true of many other fruits \u2026 like oranges<\/em>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been around long enough to understand that weird holiday traditions aren\u2019t just handed down for no reason. There\u2019s usually a fable or legend attached to the tradition, which is why I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n With that in mind, Thursday\u2019s entry will be a watermelon legend of epic holiday proportions. Because of today\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n With any luck, my plan will work, and watermelon will soon have its place as a traditional holiday offering \u2026 at least in my house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-general","7":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\n