25 December 2008

Starfruit and Pomegranates


Merry Christmas, all!
Christ is born - Glorify Him!

As was anticipated, it was an extremely white Christmas here. So very white. A very good day, overall.

Many children, I am given to understand, receive fruit in their stockings on Christmas morning. An orange or a grapefruit is probably usual, given the season. Growing up, I always got a starfruit, and my sister always got a pomegranate. It was wonderful and special, and I always looked forward to it. These fruits only came at Christmastime.

My sophomore year of college, during the spring semester, I had a revelation regarding this. One day, the cafeteria had two large platters piled with sliced starfruit. I was excited, and loaded up a plate with them. But something I could not quite put my finger on was gnawing at the back of my mind, bothering me about the occurrence. As I was eating, trying to convince my friends, none of whom had ever had a starfruit, to try it, it hit me.

I realized that I had this belief of sorts in the back of my mind that starfruit and pomegranates grew at the north pole. Now, this is not to say that I still believed this. But I think it was one of those childhood beliefs that is fairly minor, so it never really gets disproved or actively disbelieved, but rather is just put away in the back of one's mind until such a moment as I had. Thinking about it, it does seem a reasonable explanation for a small child, to explain why those very special fruits only came at Christmas. Of course - Santa grows them!

I do not know if I came to this conclusion by myself, or if I was told it. I asked my mom about it and she says she does not remember saying anything like that. My inclination is that my sister convinced me of it at some point, because it seems like the sort of thing she would have told me. (Do you remember anything like this, dear sister?)

So, this Christmas as I pulled a pomegranate out of my stocking (sadly, no starfruit for me this year), I wondered if anyone else had a similar story, of a minor childhood belief, inconsequential to most of life, that was realized years later. If so, please share!

Wishing everyone a most glorious Nativity feast.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No.
-sis

Lindsey said...

that's such a cute story, I didn't get to try starfruit until a ew months ago with my roommate's family, quite tasty.

I hae a somewhat similar story, though not related to Christmas. I've always been very fond of egg salad sandwiches, and growing up we called them "smashed egg sandwiches" I thought this was a standard name for them...until last year in the apartment when my roommate Becky laughed at me and said "you know that's not what they're really called." On a small level, it was horrifying.

The next time I was home I asked my mom about it. She laughed and said "oh, sorry, that's just what I called them with you kids."

On a side note, I still think smashed egg sandwich is a pretty good name for it. :)

Calvin said...

Pomegranates are tasty...... ;)
Very profound no?
:D

MK Reynolds said...

what does starfruit taste like? :)
Hello good emu! :)