Where have all the Mac Reds gone?

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without an apple and an orange in your stocking. Since my earliest memories the apple has always been a Canadian Macintosh Red. In recent years it has become more and more difficult to find Mac Reds for sale and the last two years it seemed that Aldi’s was the only supermarket selling them. This year there appeared to be none on sale anywhere. This afternoon I was lucky enough to find some “Empire” apples in Sainsbury’s (the apples pictured in the top left of the collage; the other two images are of Macintosh Reds). It’s not Mac Red but it’s the closest variety to it being a cross between Mac Red and Red Delicious having many of the Mac Red characteristics in terms of colour, flavour and juiciness.. So Christmas can now proceed unspoilt.
Why might you ask does it have to be Macintosh Red? Well I think this “tradition goes back to the 1940s and 1950s: ex pat Scots living in Canada(where Macintosh Reds are the national apple) used to send boxes of them carefully wrapped in tissue paper, to relatives in Scotland and other parts of the UK. In those days nothing was wasted and even the tissue paper was put to good use: it was ironed and made used instead of the dreaded Izal!!!
I think I will start a petition to have Macintosh Reds freely available for sale since to me and many others Christmas would not be Christmas without a Mac Red.