Each Christmas, my father and Jan’s father received a single gift. It was an orange. Nothing more. Just an orange. 

In the Depression, some kids received no gifts on Christmas. Life was hard in those days. There were no toys or special vacations like we have today. To have enough food was enough.

My father was raised by an itinerant worker skilled in various trades who settled in Oklahoma for a while, where my father was born. He did odd jobs to feed his family. Jan’s dad came from a Pennsylvania farm that could grow what was needed to support a large farming family.

Parents in the Depression did not have credit cards and the ability to create an unpayable stream of debt. While times were tough in the Depression, their Christmas celebration remained simple and unburdened. They only gave what they could afford. 

In today’s world, some people might feel sorry that our grandfathers received only a single piece of fruit for Christmas. They shouldn’t feel that way. For our fathers, it was a day of joy being able to bite into a piece of delicious fruit.

When we raised our children, we did stocking stuffers. Our kids opened the stockings before they got to the gifts under the tree. In each of our kid’s stockings, at the very bottom of their stocking, was placed a single orange. The orange was a reminder of the lives their grandfathers lived.

We need to remind ourselves of the lives our ancestors lived.  That linkage to our personal history creates a perspective. It has offered us, and our kids, a sense of thankfulness, not selfishness, for what the Lord has given our family. 

That thankfulness and the perspective it provides is our Christmas gift. It gives us something that a selfish and demanding perspective could never provide. 

It reminds us to “Be thankful in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). That thankfulness can turn a meager season into a season of blessing.