Oranges.
Search online for “Great Depression Christmas,” and you’ll find numerous histories and personal recollections of that holiday when the United States was in the depths of the longest, ugliest financial downturn in its history. As you browse these narratives, many written by people who lived through the economic disaster, or by their children, you’ll find a now ordinary fruit, the orange, mentioned time and again. Along with candy and nuts, an orange was the most common stocking gift given to children; it was a rare and costly treat in a household where the Christmas meal might consist of soup and homemade bread.
