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.
Some today may rightly feel moved to pity the reduced circumstances in which countless thousands of fathers and mothers battled to provide a Christmas for their children. Yet the background to their stories can rouse admiration and respect: The hard times of the 1930s produced creative ways to celebrate the winter holidays that continue to influence us today.
Appreciating the Basics
Before the stock market crash of 1929, the unemployment rate in the United States was a little more than 3 percent. During the Depression years, from 1929 to 1941,that rate soared, peaking at 25 percent in 1933 and remaining in the double digits until the United States entered World War II. Consequently, when the Yule season rolled around, struggling families had to make rather than buy Christmas gifts for their children.
For his 2008 article “Fruits of the Great Depression: Christmas Memories,” Damon Sims interviewed several elderly men and women who were children when the U.S. economy fell apart. Their recollections of Christmastime were remarkably similar. Nearly all reported that their stockings usually held nuts, candy, and the ubiquitous oranges. Any other gifts they received were often preowned toys or, more commonly, handmade by a parent.
Richard Grondin, who grew up with eight siblings on a Michigan farm, remembered the delight with which he received a store-bought lunch bucket for Christmas. It was a novelty among his classmates in their one-room schoolhouse.
“Everybody was poor,” he told Sims. “Nobody had money. If you had food to eat and a place to sleep, you were thankful for that.”
Marie Calandra, 86, recalled the Cleveland stores of her childhood.
“We always went downtown to see Santa Claus and look at all the windows,“ she said. ”The displays were fantastic, wonderful.”
She was the daughter of a man who owned a shoe repair business. Her family window-shopped rather than bought from these establishments.
“We were lucky,” she told Sims. “We ate. We didn’t have that much, but we were never deprived.”
Christmas dinner in the home of Earl Pauley during the Depression, 1936. Many children felt fortunate just to have food on the table and a roof over their heads. Public Domain
Secondhand and Homemade
In her sketch “Christmas in the Depression 1936: We Had Each Other,” Reva Swanson described her father’s struggles to maintain his upholstery business and her parents’ joint efforts to give their children a Christmas with a tree and some gifts.
“There was a pair of skates for brother Bob, who was 13. Not new, but in very good condition,“ she said. ”A sled for Jack who was 4, and it had a shiny new coat of paint. There were dolls for all four girls. Amazing ... they looked like our old dolls but they had bright shiny clean faces and new dresses and little crocheted booties and even little pairs of underwear.”
Her mother had collected their dolls several days before Christmas. To the girls’ delight, their mother had refurbished them.
“What a wonderful Christmas,” Swanson concluded. “We had food on the table, toys to play with, a roof over our heads, warm beds to sleep in, the love of our parents—and none of it came from the Sears catalog.”
Store-Bought
Cover for the 1937 Sears "Christmas Wishbook" and a letter to Santa. Internet Archive. Public Domain
The Sears catalog to which Swanson referred was likely the Sears Christmas Book. The company had begun their mail-order business almost 50 years earlier, but it was only in 1933 that Sears & Roebuck put out its first Christmas catalog. This annual inventory of gifts soon became an American icon known as the “Wish Book,” featuring goods for adults and children, with scenes of Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and ornaments decorating the pages.
Merchandise for children in that first issue included a “Miss Pigtails” doll, Mickey Mouse watches, and Lionel electric trains. Besides clothing and bath accessories, adults could purchase treats such as chocolates, fruitcakes, and even canaries.
Fruit cake and candies advertised in the 1937 Sears "Christmas Wishbook." Internet Archive. Public Domain
The existence of such a catalog and numerous descriptions of window displays in the stores of towns and cities around the country reveal that many Americans could afford a store-bought Christmas. The low prices for these goods matched the fallen economy, and innovative manufacturers created and offered affordable seasonal decorations to prospective customers.
Inexpensive foil icicles and garlands for Christmas trees, for instance, rose in popularity during this decade. Cardboard Putz houses, toy buildings that originated in Germany, were used to create miniature villages beneath the Christmas tree. Working in conjunction with Corning Glass, in 1937 Max Eckardt began mass-producing Shiny Brite ornaments for use as tree decorations, which became incredibly popular. Richard Drew’s 1930 invention of scotch tape was an instant hit for gift wrapping presents. In 1930, Coca-Cola’s Santa Claus appeared in ads in the Saturday Evening Post and other outlets, and that image became the St. Nick standard still used today: a plump, white-bearded, pleasant old man in a red suit.
Advertisements for affordable Christmas tree decorations: foil icicles, cardboard villages, and glass ornaments in the 1937 Sears "Christmas Wishbook." Internet Archive. Public Domain
Family, Friends, and Community
A frequent theme in personal accounts of a Great Depression Christmas is the importance of familial and social ties. These bonds existed before 1929, but with the tidal wave of unemployment and its companions, uncertainty and fear, these relationships became even more important.
Unemployed workers in front of a shack with a Christmas tree gather around a trashcan fire on East 12th Street, New York City, 1938. Library of Congress. Public Domain
In Janie McKinley’s story from the Blue Ridge Mountains, we meet Granny, who when younger had fretted during the Depression years about whether members of her extended family would enjoy a good Christmas. Granny’s efforts to ensure everyone left the holiday table well-fed show her unflagging allegiance to relatives outside her own household.
“With foil icicles, dime-store gifts, and her seasonal dinner, Granny shared what was available during the Great Depression. And her caring efforts helped to make Christmas merrier during hard times,” McKinley said.
From Canada came the story “90 Years Ago, I Was Touched by a Random Act of Kindness That Defined the Christmas Spirit.” Here, Elsie Balint travels back to the Depression, when she was 6 years old and her family was struggling to make ends meet. Her parents explained to her there would be no presents that year, with the exception of some candy and an orange, a condition she readily accepted. However, she yearned for a Christmas tree decorated like the one in a local hardware store window. Walking home every day after school, Balint would pause to admire the beautiful tree.
On Christmas Eve, the owner of the hardware store showed up at Balint’s house with the fully decorated tree and told the family that they might enjoy keeping it over the holidays.
“We thanked him and wished him a very Merry Christmas,“ she said. ”After he left, I sat on the floor in front of my tree. I touched the prickly needles and smooth bulbs. My heart was bursting with joy to think that this tree was ours.”
A construction workman's one-room apartment during the Depression with a modest Christmas tree featuring foil icicles and Shiny Brite ornaments. Library of Congress. Public Domain
Fast Forward to the Present
One obvious reason to reflect on the past is to absorb any lessons it has to teach us.
The case of Christmas during the Great Depression offers several takeaways. We learn of men, women, and children who possessed the grit, creativity, and good sense to make do for themselves during hard times. Certainly, not all faced poverty with bright hearts, but in all these reminiscences, no one comes across embittered by the poverty they faced, nor do they seem envious of others. Those kids bent over their Sears Wish Books were enchanted, not green with envy.
Moreover, and more importantly, these children of the 1930s appear grateful for the gifts that came their way, however small or insignificant by today’s standards. A solitary orange might have been the gift of the season, but they recall Christmas as a time of joy and family, sacrifice and love.
In speaking with Damon Sims, 84-year-old Janet Hirz shared her own lesson from her Depression Christmases: “Things don’t make you happy.”
Unspoken were these words: People do.
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Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make The Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
