Thanksgiving weekend we had visitors, nephew Josh and family. Josh and Jenny have three, two daughters about seven or eight years and their younger brother.

Ann had on hand a bag of oranges, the small sweet mandarin variety. Actually our favorites are the "little sweeties" which are a cross between the mandarins and something else but it was a little early for them to be available.

Oh the girls were intrigued and eagerly took them as if the little fruit was a rare treat. Well maybe it was the unique little plastic peeler that I showed them how to use that had the greatest appeal. Nevertheless I was reminded of my own childhood right here in Southwest Nebraska.

For the duration of World War II we rarely saw oranges or any other kind of citrus for that matter. On Christmas Eve, though, Mom had us hang stockings for Santa to leave special treats. Come Christmas morning I somehow missed the coal but always found hard candy, peanuts, tree nuts and, best of all, an orange in my stretched-out sock. Those oranges were always a really special treat.

Following the war years fresh citrus became more plentiful and oranges, while still the best, had lost their specialness. Then on an Air Force assignment, my new bride and I ended up living in the Rio Grande River valley near the southern tip of Texas. There I rekindled a love affair with the wonderful taste of a fresh-picked, tree-ripened orange. We also discovered Ruby Red Texas grapefruit sweet enough to peel and eat out of hand.

Years later, Christmas 1968, my commander explained to me that being as my crew and I had spent the summer in Southeast Asia it would be a fine thing for us to spend Christmas in Alaska.

Well, some crew had to do it and we were lucky enough to have had a break in the middle of a six-month deployment to the lush tropics of Thailand, Okinawa, Taiwan and other vacation spots surrounding Vietnam. So, leaving our families in Oklahoma, north to Alaska we flew.

It turned out that a friend and neighbor from a previous assignment flew helicopters from our temporary duty base near Fairbanks. Bill, too, drew Christmas duty at Galena which was a couple of hundred miles west of Fairbanks. Bill asked me to go along, and as the tanker crews were "standing down" for the holiday, I sacrificed and went with him.

Christmas morning about sunup found us in a helicopter flying to the town of Ruby located on a high bank overlooking the Yukon River. Now in Ruby, Santa arrives by helicopter on Christmas morning, has for years, and with help from the Alaska Air Guard, still does so today.

One low pass over Ruby and we came around to find every kid in town out in the street appropriately dressed for the 15 degree below zero sunshine. We landed on the ice of the Yukon and every kid present received a gift personally handed out by Santa.

When Santa's bag of gifts got empty, we trekked up the hill to be warmly received in the trading post with hot coffee and home-baked treats. The eight of us present were then each offered one of the most beautiful oranges that I'd ever seen in my life.

I am sure that they had come at great expense from Japan. Each was absolutely perfect! To a man, we Air Force guys refused to take one of those most valuable oranges realizing the we had them available everyday in the mess hall on base but to the native Alaskans they held the same status of a rare and precious treat that I too had held dear in my own childhood.

It is my prayer that Christmas this year will bring back precious memories of your own childhood. Those oranges and the memories that they engendered made my Christmas that year, so far away from family, just a little bit better and so may it be with you and yours.

That is the way I see it.