Since we’ve now entered the holiday season, it seems only fitting to discuss a fruit that used to be essential to Christmas festivities: the orange hidden at the bottom of each stocking. Nowadays it seems shocking that a common citrus fruit would elicit such joy; however, Christmas oranges delighted children who lived during the GAPE.
Children's Love for Fruit. Library of Congress.
In the nineteenth century, putting up Christmas trees and hanging stockings by the fireplace started to become a tradition, and Christmas oranges soon followed. Although the origin of dropping these citrus fruits in the toes of stockings is unknown, it’s possible that the Christmas orange tradition was prompted by the legend of Saint Nicholas, who gave three women dowries of balls of gold during the 200s A.D.
Apparently, oranges were a good substitute for gold, which makes some sense given that oranges—now commonplace fruit—were still fairly rare in the late 1800s and early 1900s, although they were becoming more widespread. At first, only wealthy families had the financial means to place oranges in their children’s stockings, but as the citrus industry (previously the provenance of Spain) took off in the United States, families who didn’t make as much money could afford to place oranges in the toes of stockings.
And they were even encouraged to do so. In 1908, the California Fruit Growers Exchange (later known as Sunkist) started a campaign that specifically marketed oranges for Christmas, calling them a “most healthful gift.” By the 1920s, the Christmas orange was a “custom-honored” tradition. In fact, the January 1921 California Citrograph issue stated, “The Christmas stocking is really not properly filled without an orange in it, and it is a wise Santa Claus who gives this fruit to his small believers rather than filling their stockings with cheap, artificially colored and oftentimes injurious candy.”
Picking oranges. Library of Congress.
Peg Newton Smith of Little Rock, Arkansas remembered that her Christmas stockings from the 1920s always contained oranges and sometimes a silver dollar. She recalled, “During Christmas week you’d savor each segment of your orange, carefully taking the thick peel to the kitchen where it would be minced to flavor some delicacy or made into marmalade . . . .”
As to more famous recipients of Christmas oranges, readers of the Little House books may remember Laura Ingalls Wilder’s joy when she received an orange at a birthday party just shortly after Christmas. As Laura told her mother after returning home from the party, “Oh, Ma, each one of us had a whole orange!” Prior to this party, she had never eaten a whole orange: “Still, she had once eaten part of an orange, so she knew how good an orange tastes.”
Even President Theodore Roosevelt got oranges for Christmas, as this December 23, 1903, letter to former Rough Rider Joseph L. B. Alexander indicates:
Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Joseph L. B. Alexander. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
As you think about holiday gifts this year, I’d encourage you to place an orange in a loved one’s stocking. You’d be following in a time-honored tradition celebrated by well-known historical figures and people throughout the GAPE, which would make this Christmas season extra special.
I remember that Grandma always made sure I had an orange at the bottom of my stocking when I was little. I would always eat it while playing with my new toys, haha.