Thrice Orange Spice

“Fall in love with the warm satirical glow of not one, not two, but three spiced oranges!”

When I was growing up, my mom always went all out with the Christmas stuff.  Garlands wrapped around the beams and banisters, a 40 foot ceiling gettin’ brushed by the tallest tree we could find, every surface decorated somehow or another with Christmas-y stuff, and loaves upon loaves of cranberry bread littered our kitchen and side table.  It all felt extra cozy on account of the dust.  What I mean is, our large antique house was powered by a giant, almost equally antique heater.  Not that they had heaters quite like that back in 1904, but just wait a few years after that and there you go.  Well, the sickly olive green it sported made me assume it was at least from the 70s, since folks seemed a bit obsessed with such a shade of green during that decade.  To exacerbate it all we were livin’ on the plains, which we all know the wind loves to obsessively sweep.  A side effect of all this sweeping is that it’s impossible to keep away the centimeters of dust accumulation.  If you ever wonder just how dusty it must have been during the Dust Bowl, just stay a spell somewheres in Oklahoma.  Dust every surface in the place you’re stayin’ at, then wait 3 days.  I’ll wait.  Has it been three days?  Okay, now measure the dust accumulation (average is 1.2045cm per 24 hours for Garfield County), then multiply that by 47.2 and you’ll have an average day in the Dust Bowl.  Anywho, this heater always smelled like burnt dust (on account of all that danged sweeping) and was a big, metal box bigger than our fridge.  When things got real cold, my mom and I would stand on chairs, stick our arms out over the column of air shooting out it’s top and giggle a the thought of how ridiculous we must look.  All this cozyin’ up to the heater during cold winters in a creaky ol’ house led me to associate the smell of burnt dust with warm fuzzy winter cheer.  Mmm... Christmas dust.  Anyway, there we were, with the garlands and the lights and the trees (yes, ‘trees’ with an ‘s’) and the Santas and the bells and the shiny orbs and let’s not forget the Christmas glitter and all that cheer and the smells of the cranberry breads and the jams and the jellies and the Christmas pickles and the brittles and the fudge and the divinities and... well.. Then came the oranges.  Now we already had a tradition of orange smells in the air at Christmas time on account of all that cranberry bread.  (Remember now, cranberry bread has a lot of orange zest and juice and such.)  But this year was differ’nt.  (‘This year’ in this case of course bein’ somehweres in the late 90s).  Anyway, there we were, oranges all at the ready per usual, excepting for the fact that there were a heck of a lot more than was the standard.  In fact, I was pretty sure we were now the only folks in all of Garfield County what had any oranges.  The orange section must have looked like the ammo section after an election.  So there we were, piles of oranges, a full regiment’s worth of 9-tier dehydrators lined at the ready wherever there was space - be it a counter top, table top, flat top, pop top, you name it - and an almost unholy amount of spices.  Well, my mom, she worked away at slicing those oranges and lining the regiment’s worth of 9-tier dehydrators until all my eyeballs could see whether they were opened or closed was trays and trays of shriveling orange slices.  For days we had the WVRRRRRRRR of little motors overpowering the sound of our vintage heater as they blasted the smell of hot oranges all through the house.  Then the next batch would be put in and the cycle would start anew.  Now I’ll say right here and now that nothin’ but the smell of oranges for two weeks straight is pretty darned amazing and I highly recommend it.  But anyway, there she was, working away, adding the spices and such, making jar after jar of PO-PURR-REE.  I hear it’s spelled ‘potpourri’, but whatever.  She’d get it all lookin’ nice with them dried orange slices, anise stars, cinnamon sticks and whatnot, and would top it all off with a few drops of orange essential oils (because apparently the whole of Garfield County’s orange supply just wasn’t quite enough orange for some real proper po-purr-ree).  After stuffing it into jars, she’d seal it all off with a fine ribbon of sorts to make it look extra Christmas-gift-y and then she’d stick these around the house amongst the other Christmas decorations and candies and whatnot and some would eventually float away to other homes and houses as part of the gift-giving festivities and such.  Some she’d even stuff into some glass cubes and mix it around with a string of white lights to make it extra extra Christmas-y.  The lights would make the orange stuff smell extra strong, too, on account of the heat.

Anyway, this was all well and good, savin’ for one thing - YOU COULDN’T EAT IT.  I don’t know why as I assumed it was all natural.  Maybe there was something weird in those alleged “essential oils”, ‘cause my mom firmly told me it wasn’t for eatin’, it was just for smellin’ of.  It was as if I were following the seductive sounds of a fine fiddle tune only to find the source was the Devil himself.  And this ain’t even Georgia!  Well the years passed, and though I think she only did that po-purr-ree one year ever, the sheer amount managed in that one lonesome year was apparently enough to last the decades and forge forever bonds because when just the very thought of Christmas dust and orange spice hit my mind, my soul rang and jingled of Christmas to the glitterin’, garland-decked bones. Nudging up on 30 years later, this remains true.  But one thing haunts me... And that’s the sheer lack of edibility.  I think on that winter aroma and my mouth waters for that forbidden spiced fruit concoction.  Or did, that is, until just a few weeks shy of Christmas of 2024.  It’s called Jul here, you know.  That is, here in Norway.  So anyway there I was, sittin’ in my good sittin’ spot here in the middle of Trøndelag, when upon my door I heard a rappin’.  An unnatural ting-y sound rang through each rap in a way that sent chills down my spine.  That ting of a ring could only come from that of a solid metal, but how could it be a tappin’ so?  My knees a’ knockin’, I braved my fright and pushed to the door.  Hesitating, I took one last shallow breath before I gave that knob a decisive turn.  Opening the door, my heart skipped more than just a single beat and then straight up froze.  Standing before me was that old vintage heater, blowin’ that old dusty air right into our entryway.  That old dusty smell was like a hug for my lungs.  I smiled.  He gave a smile and a wink and with a nod of his hat, he snapped his steel fingers and out of thin air a series of thin whispy whisps of orange spicey goodness materialized.  They rolled and a twisted until they had formed themselves into perfectly good taffies.  I held out my hands just at the moment those taffies discovered the concept of gravity.  And o’ holy night did those sumptuous orange spiced taffies ring true to nostalgia as they shined forth with a full bonus of glitterin’ edibility!   I looked up from those glorious taffies, meeting that ol’ heater’s gaze with tears in my eyes.  “Hjertelig takk, old friend,” I nodded.  He just smiled warmly, then tipped his hat before clunking on down our steps and moved on off down our path.  Holdin’ my taffies close, I watched him go as the sun began to set, watchin’ that dusty ol’ dust a blowin’ him home to his own place in time.