Remembering: Candy Boxes and Oranges, from Family Christmas Online^TM

Those of you who grew up with these things may think that it's silly to commemorate something so ubiquitous as Christmas candy boxes and oranges being given out at Christmas. But, like many other North American Christmas traditions, it is worth documenting now in case it goes the way of the putz* and the C-6 light bulb. And the candy box art, humble as it was, was as clear a reflection of its times as any greeting card art or Christmas tree decorations of the same period.

One of my earliest memories of receiving a candy box and orange at a public event was a firehouse Christmas party for the neighborhood children in Donnelsville, Ohio, some time in the mid-1950s. I have a vague memory of crossing Route 40 to get to the party, where there was a crowd of people I didn't know and a Santa who gave each child a candy box and an orange before they left. I know I received candy boxes and oranges later in other places, but that's the one I remember most specifically.

Many years later, we went to a small church that used to give candy boxes and oranges to the children who showed up for the Sunday-before-Christmas service. Shelia and the other ladies in charge of acquiring the candy boxes discovered that if you bought the boxes full of candy already, you spent several times as much as if you bought just the boxes, then got some huge bags of candy and filled them yourself. And the candy you bought was better, too. So I remember helping assemble and fill the boxes at least once, probably more.

This article is largely an attempt to start a "dialogue" with folks who are collecting these things or who might be interested in collecting these things. Like half of what we post on this site, there MUST be people who know more about this than I do. But I haven't been able to track them down, so I'm putting up what I know and "connecting the dots" with some educated guesses, in the hopes of triggering other folks' interest.

If you are an expert on these or you know someone who is, let us know, and we'll gladly welcome your input, corrections, additions, etc.

Even more important, if you have a special memory (or five) related to a candy-box-and-orange Christmas gift, and you want to share your story with readers, get in touch and we'll gladly share what we can.

Now here's as much of the history as I can piece together so far. Please let us know if you can help fill in the blanks.

19th-century House-Shaped Candy Boxes

The boxes to the left below represent the "disposable" end of the "house-shaped" candy box spectrum. They are simply printed and folded cardboard, probably not designed to be saved after Christmas. The box to the right below represents the "collectible" end of the spectrum. It was "glittered" like many of the light-bulb houses of the 1930s, but it was definitely made to hold candy. This box is now in the collection of Tom Hull, who collects and restores "putz*" houses of all kinds. Serendipitously, the bottom part was in the collection of "Papa Ted" Althof, and it wasn't until he gave it to Tom (who later found the top on eBay) that the whole thing came together. For more information about that, click here, and scroll down the page until you see August's "House of the Month."

As you'll see momentarily, the house-shaped candy boxes overlapped the cheap boxes with handles by about 30 years, but I wanted to give their back-story to show that the tradition of the cardboard Christmas candy box goes back well before the appearance of the little rectangular boxes with strings that many of us remember.

20th-Century Candy Boxes with Handles

The cheap candy boxes with strings that later came to be given away (often with oranges) at public Christmas events appeared about the same time. Most of the early boxes that have survived to this day have either no company name, or list companies that have long since disappeared, and none of them have dates. But it's probably safe to assume that the little Animal Cracker boxes with handles came first and seemed like a good idea to Christmas candy distributors.

One way collectors date these is by the kind of printing the boxes use. That's not perfect, of course, as printing technologies overlapped by decades, but it gives you a general idea.

Some of the earliest boxes seem to use a kind of lithography (similar to the method used to print patterns on early Lionel trains). To save money, some of them only used two or three colors of ink. Most repeated the large panel on both sides, although some had different top and bottom panels. Very few had patterns on the ends - the parts that were die cut to fit into each other ("insert tab A into slot B"). But many of them had a product number and pattern name printed on the end: "#26 St. Nick," or "#25 Hush," and so on.

The box to the right uses "blocks" of color, with relatively little attempt at shading; this usually indicates an early 20th-century box. It is probably lithographed, a 19th-century technology for printing complex graphics by etching stone 'plates.' One reader has pointed out that the Santa drawn in perspective may argue for a later date for this particular box, though.

If you study 19th and early 20th-century Christmas art for kids, you'll realize that "cutesy" was not part of the formula. Santa may smile, but he never looks exactly "warm and fuzzy." And Santa's "helper" on this box is actually a little scary, even if you don't have a clown phobia. Some shading of colors (especially the wax under the candles, the snow pack, and the elephant) indicate that this box is probably a little newer than the box above, although the art could definitely be 1900-1920.

Later boxes used printing-press graphics, but they still limited the use of color - I haven't seen many that used true four-color processing before the 1960s. This box has a date and company name (1924, Standard Candy Company), which aren't all that common. This is the cleverest printing job on the page - the graphics use only two colors of ink, red and green, but they use contemporary printing plate technology to create a range of tans and browns as well.

The box to the right is reportedly from the 1930s, although the Art Deco typefaces, could place it earlier. Still, it shows a more "cartooney" Santa than the earlier images. It also includes two elements not usually shown, a toy soldier with a canon, and an alarmed-looking Dachshund.

The box at the right seems slightly newer. The antique store that sold this claimed it was "Victorian," but the multiple shades (three colors of green, two of red) would tend to place it into the 1920s or later. In fact, the combination of knickers on the boys and snow suits on the girls would seem to place it in the 1930s, if not later. It is a little unusual as it has the "weight of contents" listed on the box. These were probably never sold individually, but the weight may have been printed on just in case. Doesn't a pound and a half of candy seem like a lot to give a little kid at one time? No wonder the little kids we only saw in church once or twice a year (at Christmas and maybe Easter) were always vibrating.

The 1940s-era box to the left uses three-color (red, blue, blue-green) offset printing, but I like it because the color choice represents the colors used on so much Christmas decoration packaging of the time (think back to your mom's or grandmother's Noma Christmas lights and similar products). This box could look out of place on an otherwise Victorian tree, but if you have a 1940s or 1940s-era tree, it would be right at home.

The reindeer on this overly cutesy specimen has the same look as the rocking horses from the late 1950s, so I'll agree with the antique store owner who dated it from that era as well, although early 1960s is possible. This box uses a full four-color printing process, as do most of the later boxes. To me, the earlier boxes are more appealing, but if you're decorating with aluminum Christmas trees, go for it.

What about the Candy?

The "better grade" boxes sometimes included two soft "jelly" candies shaped and flavored like orange-slices, as well as one or two green "jellies" that were often mint-flavored. If you were really lucky, you might get a gum-drop-shaped chocolate with a dense, stiff "cream" inside.

Needless to say, when we got our candy boxes home, my two sisters and I each wrote our names on the boxes, then inventoried the "special" candies and kept a careful count of how many we ate, so we could tell of someone was snitching our jellies or chocolates. The pillow-shaped hard candies were less carefully guarded.

Dad and Mom used to call the little hard candies "hard tack." It wasn't until junior high that I realized that not everybody called it by that name. Every winter as I was growing up, Mom would fill a candy jar with those candies, and refill it without question or complaint whenever it got empty.

Dad still likes his "hard tack" candy, although if you read the ingredients now, there's at least as much corn syrup in it as there is sugar these days, and it's probably made in China. I still like those "orange slice" things, although my tastes for cream-filled chocolates have become more sophisticated.

What About the Oranges?

Access to fruit in the cold months of the year was considered a luxury before railroads made California and Florida citrus available year-round in Northern states. By the late 1800s, oranges at Christmas were a staple of all well-off homes (and many that were not so well off). As an example, Shelia's mother and her siblings, who grew up in Renfro Valley, Kentucky long before there was a superhighway going by could still count on getting an orange each for Christmas, even during the depression. How did "Old Dad" Griffin's grocer get oranges for his customers when the only roads in and out of the valley were barely passable in winter? I don't know, but he did it, and his customers rewarded him by adding the oranges to the tab they would pay back next August or September when their crops came in.

What about Oranges and Candy Boxes Together?

Conclusion

If you have memories about Christmas candy boxes and oranges - or any Christms memories at all - that you'd like to share with our readers, please contact us and let us know the specifics. We will gladly give credit for any information or photographs we can use.

In the meantime, whether you're reading this a week or eleven months before Christmas, please have a great family Christmas this year, and let us know what we can do to help.

Paul and Shelia Race

www.familychristmasonline.com

* In the context of North American Christmas traditions, a "putz" is an early-to-mid 20th century village display usually set up around the Nativity or Christmas tree or both. This started as a German-American tradition, probably in the late 19th century, and spread. So many putzes included cardboard Christmas houses (both the candy-box and illuminated kind) that these houses are called "putz houses" by their collectors.

Reader Responses

I sure do remember these with great fondness. Seems like we'd always score two or three during the Season . Some teachers would give them to the class, always got one at the big "25 Cartoons Special" at the local bijou Saturday Matinee, and sometimes from store promotions.

As to oranges and nuts - a week prior to the Christmas Eve Sunday School Pageant, the church counsel would gather in the basement of St. Johns in Russell, Kansas and put together the anunual gift for all kids who participated. This consisted of two brown paper bags - a large outer one with about a pound of assorted unshelled nuts and a couple of oranges - and smaller inner one filled with various cheap candies. To this day those cheap chocolate creme drops , peanut brittle, and chocolate-covered peanut clusters are essential of Christmas. The good things went first, of course, then down to the hard candies and finally into the nuts. That bag would still yield something until almost Easter.

There was always an orange down at the bottom in the toe of our Christmas stockings. And a few more nuts. Never could get around the Brazil nuts . . . . Not even our hamster could get those things open. -Ted

[Later Ted added:] The other thing of that ilk were those little red-mesh or net stockings pre-filled with little stuff and sewed shut at the top. .. the same kind of netting they used to use to bag oranges and onions. Those came in all sizes with varying degrees of toy and candy sizes. Seems like somebody was always giving out the little mitten-sized versions sometime during the Season Build-Up. They always seemed to be around for "Lazy Santas" to give out.

Tom Hull, a putz-house collector and restorer and a frequent contributor to Ted's site, adds

I remember well the Nabisco Animal Crackers boxes with the woven handles. I never had one for Christmas but was purchased year round for us kids when we were in the grocery store. I doubt the cookies ever made it all the way back on the trip home.

However I don't THINK that I remember much about the Christmas type candy box. I MAY have gotten one in the first grade from my teacher but can't recall it. Call it a deprived child hood. :-)

What I DO remember is that in our little limestone country church that every Christmas after the annual program Santa would come and distribute what ever gifts had been left on the huge tree and then with the help of is "helpers" (men in the church), would distribute bags of candy and nuts and an orange. If I remember the candy was in a smaller bag and the peanuts and orange in the larger bag. I suppose they did this to keep the candy clean. Also in the tiny town they had a Santa day when bags of nuts and candy were distributed (no orange as the local chamber of commerce must have deemed that too extravagant.) However these were always pretty extraneous as far as our Christmas's were concerned.

Not only did we get an Orange and usually a Delicious apple in our stocking (yes the orange in the toe). But dad had a punch bowl full of huge navel oranges and Red Delicious apples liberally distributed around the gifts as well as a bowl of those. Mixed nuts were in their own special wooden bowl made from a tree trunk with bark intact and a place in the center for the metal nutcracker and nut picks. A LONG basket was always filled with peanuts and there were bowls of various kinds of candy including the chocolate peanut clusters, malt balls, and chocolate covered nuts and stars. Always a bowl of peanut brittle and that related square type with LOTS of peanuts in it. We had hard ribbon candy and those millefiori discs and each year different varieties of filled hard candies. Not my favorite but I LOVE the ribbon candy - especially the clove flavored. Each ribbon candy had its own distinctive color pattern on it and I believe the clove usually had red and yellow stripes on it. Peppermint had about 5 fine red stripes on it as I remember.

Your special Christmas memories could go here . . . . :-)

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