# Nuts in sacks
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 29, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711 "2000-12-29T20:34:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnson)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2000, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711/1 "2000-12-29T20:34:36Z")
As kids, Santa always left us a nice large shiny red delicious apple, a big navel orange and walnuts in our stockings. Santa apparently left my wife’s grandmother the same things (well, definitely the walnuts, and I think the rest too) many years ago, several hours away (in a remote rural area). All of this in the mid-Atlantic…
Any ideas what this represents, and where this tradition got started? Is it widespread?
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### Author:  [@BunnyGirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BunnyGirl)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2000, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711/2 "2000-12-29T20:48:48Z")
It’s possible that in times past, these things were seen as treats and therefore appropriate for the stockings. I remember reading in the Little House series about Laura and her sisters getting oranges in their stockings at one point and how excited they were about them.
Just a WAG.
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### Author:  [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2000, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711/3 "2000-12-29T22:03:34Z")
IIRC, since transcontintental shipping was not what it is today, oranges, shipped from Florida, California or god knows where, where a special treat available only at substantial expense. And it would have been an extra-special treat to eat _any_ type of fresh fruit in December (everything else would have been caned at least in Little House days).
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### Author:  [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2000, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711/4 "2000-12-29T22:15:14Z")
The two preceding replies are good guesses, and here’s my WAG to go on top of them.
It’s possible that the tradition also has much older overtones, and may be a way of celebrating the recent harvest.
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2000, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711/5 "2000-12-29T22:15:46Z")
My Polish grandparents in NJ have always done the walnuts in the stockings. No clue why. No one ever had a nut cracker around either. 🙂 Lately they’ve been doing Clementines, which are appreciated much more and rather easier to eat.
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### Author:  [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)
#### Post date: [December 29, 2000, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuts-in-sacks/47711/6 "2000-12-29T22:25:34Z")
canned, that is. ::duh::