Sundays In My City: Picking Mandarinas

The Sunday after Thanksgiving and it´s 80 degrees outside. That´s when you know you live in Southern California.

So while people are uploading pictures to showcase their freshly cut or unboxed Christmas tree and holiday trimmings, we are trying to figure out what the heck to do with the explosion of sweet mandarins in our backyard.

After our backyard picnic brunch with Barbie, Ken, all sorts of princesses and stuffed amigos, I decide it´s time to face the fact that we need to pick those mandarins before they start falling to the ground and making a huge mess. We love mandarinas and have a blast picking them, but I was dreading trying to figure out what to do with them.

There.are.so.many.

This is a picture of the actual tree before I started picking.

No need for an after. It pretty much looks the same, even after we picked these many off:

I pleaded on Facebook and Instagram for recommendations on what to do with them and got some great tips like making mandarin bundt cakes or putting them in small baskets with a citrus-scented candle and giving those as early Christmas gifts to my girl´s teachers and neighbors.

I need lots of tips because the tree is still full and I´ll be picking many more next Sunday and for many months to come as well.

And while I´m obsessing over the mandarins, my girl will most likely be engaged in perfecting her mud pies, de nuevo!

What would you do with a weekly bounty of mandarins for the next months?