Does Ham tastes like oranges?

Christmas is comin! It does this every year and every year it surprises me to realize that there are actually some folks out there who won't be able to have a Christmas. Oh, I'm not talking about all the pretty packages wrapped and setting under a glowing tree bedangled with ornaments and tinsel.
I'm talking about not having bread and meat. I'm talking folks who celebrate our Lord's birthday with their electricity shut off or no gasoline, hollow-eyed daddies and haggard mommas who scrimp and scrounge around so that their little kids can have something, most likely anything, to eat or wear or keep warm with.

Uncle Skeet wrote us a letter about the Christmas of 1932 in Robeline, La.

Ever time I think of Christmas I think of way back in the year 1932 when your Grandaddy, old man George Roberts, had moved all of us over to Louisiana cause he'd done found some sawmill work over there and we all felt pretty durned lucky to have a daddy a-working cause so many daddies was layed off in those days of hard times.

We all lived in a 'dog-run' house built up on creek rocks for a foundation so the house set perched up bout five foot offa the ground and this was so we could get air-flow under and around the house in place of air-conditioning in the summertime.

Well, Momma and Daddy had saved and worked hard to get all us kids something for Christmas and yall got to remember, times was tough and even if we could have gotten into town to buy nice things, they wadn't any money to buy 'em with nohow, so we was pretty much grateful for what Momma and Daddy could rake up for us.

Little old homemade dolls, popguns whittled from a fresh cut pine two by four, new underwear made from BlueBonnet Flour sacking, stockings knitted by hand, those types of things.

Well sir, since Daddy was working steady and since he had some money left over after his paycheck was taken up by the Company Store and the rent on our old house, him and Momma put their heads together and got the wonderful idea to buy us some oranges that had come in on the train in big old wooden crates.

Us kids hung around the little grocery store in Robeline and watched as guys unloaded those bright orange globes and we could only bgin to wonder what something like that tasted like, how it felt to have all that deliscious juice run down your chin and the bright, sweet smell hitting your nose...whew!

Oranges was out of our league finance-wise, and there was no way we could ever taste or feel or smell something that good and sweet so we hung around the store watching folks buy them oranges and walk out into the chilly sunshine of a December day and peel 'em and section them out and gobble them down, all the while our mouth's watering.

Chrismas got closer and closer and them oranges made the entire town of Robeline smell like Florida or somewheres and we had no idea Daddy and momma had taken what little savings they had and sneaked off down to the store and purchased eight of those wonderful fruits.

Finally Christmas morning came and the sun wadn't hardly up until we scamperd out of the two beds we all shared in the back room and went hollering down the hall to wake up Mom and Dad. The old house rattled and thundered with us kids bounding down the hall, sounded like a herd of elephants!

We grabbed our Santy presents and sat down cross-legged on the splintery floor and began playing with our treasure when Momma came in from the kitchen and said, "Don't yall want your other presents?"

I tell you, hoss, time stopped right there and then for us google-eyed kids!

For bout two seconds we couldn't believe what we'd heard Momma say cause we hadn't any idea they was anything in the world more'n this!

We jumped up and run to her, all clutching her skirt-tails, we followed her outside, us a pantin with desire and wide-eyed and Daddy grinning frm ear to ear, we went out on the porch and down the old plank steps into the bare stomp of the yard and she leanded down and made a big old show of peeking under the porch and then Momma gasped and her hand flew up to her mouth and that was never a good sign so we all bent down and took a look under the porch and there sitting in the dirt was the biggest, fattest hog our neighbor owned...slobbering and snuffling down the juicy fruit of eight Christmas oranges!

That was the least hungriest lookin pig we had ever witnessed! Orange rinds was all around him and he positivley grinned his pleasure at the whole family who gawked at his greediness!

We trugded back inside, disappointed and orange-hungry. Momma was softly crying and Daddy was as mad as I ever saw him.

Well, our little homemade toys didn't look so Christmassy all of a sudden and we kind of sulked along until late that evening. You see, Momma and Daddy had spent all the Christmas dinner money on oranges so the prospects of Chrismas dinner wern't none too good since the porker had eaten the oranges.

Time crawled by that day. We played but our hearts weren't really in it and along about sundown we heard Momma holler at us from the back door, "Yall come on in! Christmas dinner is on the table!"

Well, we made our way slowly up from the creekbed behind the house and stood at the back door when I first smelled the aroma of....ham.

There, layed out on the old sideboard was the biggest, purtiest ham you ever saw! Daddy was slicing juicy baked slabs of it onto Momma's best dinner platter and you know whut? That ham smelled just like...oranges!

Folks, this time of year is special. Do something GOOD for someone today, it'll make you feel good all year round!

God bless and MERRY CHRISTMAS!