As a child, I always received an orange in the toe of my Christmas stocking on Christmas morning. My father had a successful plumbing business and although he worked long days in cold Colorado weather, we never wanted for good food, adequate clothing or a clean bed to rest in. So over the years, I never really understood why that very common orange was such an important item to include in our Christmas goodies.

Today, we can buy oranges whenever we want, but fresh oranges were once considered a genuine luxury. If you search online for “Great Depression Christmas,” you’ll find many histories and personal accounts of that December holiday when the US was in the depths of the longest and ugliest economic decline in its history.

Reading these narratives, many written by people who lived through the financial disaster or by their children, you’ll discover this ordinary fruit, the orange, mentioned over and over again.

Along with candy and nuts, an orange was the most common stocking treat given to children. It was a rare and costly treat indeed—in a household where the Christmas meal might only consist of soup and homemade bread.

This explains a great deal about getting an orange in the toe of my own stocking. My parents were children of the depression, from poor farming families in northeastern Utah. They knew exactly how scare treats were during those extremely difficult years. I certainly never connected these offerings with their implied history. I appreciate that ordinary, but very special fruit a little more now!