Christmas Oranges

An original short story by Marilyn Bay

Marcus could scarcely contain his excitement.  For nearly a year, he had been planning, working and saving to give his mother a dozen oranges for Christmas. 

At least once a week over the past eleven months, he had left the ghetto and walked to the section of the city with fine shops.  He would pause just long enough to gaze into the window of the fruit shop at the perfectly round, plump oranges.  Then he would scurry back into the ghetto where he could again slide into oblivion. 

At first, the price of a single orange astounded him.  Had he been able to sell his one pair of shoes and tattered clothes, it would have been enough to purchase a single piece of the succulent fruit.  But Marcus had a plan.  He would work enough extra chores every month to buy one orange, and by the end of the year he would have enough to buy an entire dozen. 

He scavenged through the dump for articles of value and sold them to the junk man, who would dust off the recovered treasures, double the price, and resell them from his street cart.  He ran errands, made deliveries and did dozens of odd jobs.  The hardest but best paying job came to him when he overheard the train station manager complain about having to clean the floors of the station every night.  Every night for the last seven weeks, Marcus had gone to bed, rising and leaving the house as soon as his mother fell asleep.  He would run the six blocks to the train station, slip through the back door, rub down the floors with salt, and rush home in time to get a few hours of sleep before dawn broke.

Marcus caressed the coins and allowed himself to daydream as he made his weekly pilgrimage to the fruit shop.  He could envision the look of contentment on his mother’s face as she peeled the first of the precious oranges.  He could smell the sweet, clean, citrus aroma.  He imagined the admiring comments of the neighbors, who would marvel at the feat he had accomplished.

“Tis quite a lad,” they would say, “Earnin’ coins all the year long just to buy ‘is mom thot fine fruit.”

Finally, it was Christmas Eve.  Marcus would make one last trip to the fruit shop, but this time he would march through the door and show the merchant his coins.  He would politely, but in a businesslike manner, ask for a dozen of the shop’s best oranges.  And he would ask that the fruit be put in a fancy basket with a beautiful bow.

Suddenly, his excitement turned to fear.  What if they thought him a beggar and kicked him out of the shop before he could show his coins?  What if he had miscalculated and didn’t have enough to buy the oranges?  Before his fears consumed him, he realized he was standing squarely in front of the fruit shop. 

Marcus opened the door and stepped inside the fine shop.  He swallowed hard and for a moment thought that he had forgotten how to speak.  Then, his story of saving money and doing extra work all year long came spilling out to the shopkeeper.  The shopkeeper was a kindly man, who didn’t seem the least bit concerned that a boy from the ghetto was expecting to do business with him. 

In no time at all, Marcus was leaving the fruit shop with a delicately crafted woven basket full of luscious oranges.  When Marcus asked the shopkeeper if he could spare a bow for the basket, the gracious old man replied that nothing less would be fitting for a mother’s Christmas gift.  Perched atop the beautiful basket of oranges was the grandest bow Marcus had ever seen.

As he crossed town and headed back into the ghetto, he was aware that the beauty and grandeur from the world of his basket of oranges was far behind him.  Though they were always there, today the street urchins seemed more wretched and pitiful than before.  Half a dozen of them were huddled around a fire they had started, using scraps of wood and straw as kindling.  As he walked toward them, they turned and stared at him with hallow, emotionless eyes.  His heart ached at the sight of the littlest urchin, a girl the size of a six-year-old, who probably was more like ten.

Before them, Marcus felt affluent, even greedy, with the fancy basket of fresh oranges on his hip.  As though directed by an unseen force, he reached into the basket and began to hand out oranges to the street urchins. 

A few blocks later, he saw a young girl trying to comfort her baby, who cried incessantly.  The girl looked as though she was starving to death, no doubt her baby was malnourished, as well.  Again, Marcus felt compelled to give the young mother two oranges.

As he turned onto the street that marked the beginning of his own neighborhood, Marcus was relieved that he still had two oranges in the basket.  But he found that he was unable to walk past the disfigured beggar who had no one and nothing for Christmas.  The beggar immensely enjoyed the eleventh orange.  The kindly blind grandmother was the recipient of his twelfth orange.

The rain was coming down hard now, and Marcus ducked under an awning to keep from being drenched.  As he waited for the storm to subside, a girl that was neither smart, nor pretty and who said the wrong things at the wrong time began to finger the grand bow that crowned the now empty basket.  Marcus gracefully removed it and handed it to the girl.

The rain had ended and the weather had begun to brighten, but Marcus’ mood was anything but sunny.  He climbed into bed after supper and sorrowfully wondered what he would tell his mother the next morning.

Christmas morning dawned bright and clear, sharply contrasting Marcus’ disposition.

Half way through breakfast, he could stand it no more and blurted out, “Mother, I bought the finest gift ever for you, but I have managed to squander every bit of it, even the bow that adorned it.” 

He then began to recount the story of the Christmas oranges, starting with the idea, describing how he had earned the money and ending with the distribution of the oranges and even the bow to strangers.  Tears streamed down his face as he recounted the tale to his mother.  His mother, also, was filled with emotion.

“My son,” she said, “You have given me the greatest gift possible by selflessly caring for the poor and the destitute.  Your love and generosity to me has been magnified by your sharing the love of the Christ Child with those whom no one else would love.”

Author’s note: This story was inspired by my grandfather, Alver Nelson, who was the oldest of 11 children born to Swedish immigrants, Samuel & Emily Nelson. An orange and a few pieces of candy was a generous Christmas gift for my grandfather and his siblings in the early years.