We like Orange Sticks at our house.  They are one of the primary reasons we gain weight over the holidays.  Jerry usually has a good sale on them between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  He did again this year, but we didn’t get down to the store the minute the ad was out.  You got to strike while the iron is hot when it comes to Orange Sticks, and we were slow.  The entire shipment had been scooped up by Orange Stick lovers before we set foot in Thomas Market.  Christmas was going to be a little more expensive this year. 

The Orange Stick addiction started when I was a kid.  Grandma Thorpe (aka Blodwin) always had a supply at her house over the holidays and sometimes even during the year.  In December she made divinity and fudge, but it was the Orange Sticks that drew me to the candy dish.  Grandma had lots of traditions around Christmas including her silver tree with the changing color light, her typewriter on the dining room table for writing Christmas cards, and Christmas dinner, but my favorite was when she would get the ‘Red Book’ out.

The ’Red Book’ signaled an important story.  Grandma had lots of stories in her head which she shared with us all the time.  When we stayed over, we would take our baths, then pile in bed and she would tell us stories until we fell asleep.  However, at Christmas time when she got the ‘Red Book’* out, we had story time on the couch.  No one was going to fall asleep during this one.  We would settle in, and Grandma would read out loud to us about the poor, little orphan boy who was taken in by a humble family after being ignored by those who were well-off.  As the sweet mother tells the Christmas story to her children and the little orphan they had welcomed, the group is visited by a wonderful light and ‘there was great joy in the little house.’  Now the story was good, but snuggling with Grandma and eating Orange Sticks was truly the Good Life!  

Fast-forward to 1978.  Grandma had passed away and her posterity was picking through her worldly possessions at the little brick home on the hill.  All the cousins were looking for a treasure to remind us of our grandma.  I found the ‘Red Book’ and flipped to ‘The Christmas Legend.’  I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.  The story was there, but so were chocolaty fingerprints on each page, witnessing the Good Life we had with our Grandma Thorpe and Orange Sticks!  The ‘Red Book’ is a treasure and I think I’ll be reading from it this year to my own grandkids while we all enjoy some Orange Sticks.

• “A Story To Tell”, published and copyright by Deseret Book Company, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1945.