I confess to self-deception…

I am in love with mangoes.

Ever since we got back from Europe, I’ve been having mangoes whenever I can. Lunch and dinner most days (we’ve only been back for a week). They are pretty expensive. Last week they were being sold at Coles for $3.96 each, and at Woolworths for $1.99 each. Now, Woolworths is also selling them for $3.96 each! Rip off! Don’t they know we’re in a recession? We need to give the economy a boost, not beat it down further!

Mangoes are so good for several reasons. First off, they smell like Christmas holidays, like summertime, like picnics on the headland at the beach. They taste like Christmas morning, like camping out in your own backyard with your cousins who’ve come to stay for the holidays, like swinging out over the tops of the saplings on the homemade swing on the huge gumtree in the middle of the backyard, or like jumping on the trampoline with five other kids from the neighbourhood, and not learning the lesson when someone got hurt.

That’s a lot to attribute to the smell and taste of a mango, I know. I guess I’m using it as the physical manifestation of everything that I love about Christmastime. I’m hopelessly nostalgic.