Cloves

Holiday traditions? Here's one for you. 

While others are hanging tinsel or wedging chocolate bars into oversized stockings, I am on the prowl for cloves.

For reasons I can't quite remember now, my mother's favorite Christmas preparation involved piercing oranges with cloves. It was all done very methodically of course. The cloves were arranged in tight-knit rows, leaving a small alley of space on the North/South and East/West axis. A strand of sturdy red ribbon was then tied around each piece of citrus, topped off with a loop, and then hung in every closet in the house. 

All winter long, this pungent mixture of fragrances would waft out of the darkness holding our coats and gloves. I can still smell it, even now, if only by memory...

"Fair were they also, diffusing the odor of musk as they moved. Like the soft zephyr bringing with it the sent of clove." - Imru' al-Qais