Guess what? It appears the Pickle in the Christmas Tree tradition is NOT German. It might be uniquely American. The jury is out as to how the "tradition' started. I'll try to recount a few ways.
One source says that glass ornament factory in Lausch, Germany began making Christmas ornaments in the shape of different fruits and vegetables--including a pickle. These ornaments were sold to many different countries....but some were shipped to the US...and sold at Woolworth Five and Dime. In this version of the "story" Woolworths was having a hard time selling the pickle ornament so they developed a legend of the pickle in the tree. The legend caught people's attention and lo and behold the tradition was born.
Another source starts with that same glass factory making various fruit and veggie ornaments. They built a story about the pickle in order to make it more popular.
Another source says that most Germans do not know of the tradition and of those who do, less than 10% practice the tradition. In other words, it's not a big deal.
Another source says it's an American tradition...to honor a man who was imprisoned an Andersonville during the civil war. He asked the guard for a pickle at Christmastime, the guard gave him one, and by some miracle he survived...so a pickle is placed in a tree to commemorate that occasion.
Clearly, no one really knows how the lowly pickle ended up hiding in a Christmastree. It is probably an American tradition with some German roots. The tradition is not widely practiced in Germany nor the US...but it is fun to talk about. Since I wrote part 1 of this blog I've some fun discussions about Christmastree Pickles in my art class, in the beauty shop, at a birthday party and during morning yoga. Folks who have never heard of the tradition have the same reaction I had..."ya gotta be kidding me" The tradition (if you want to call it that) is "out there." It's fun to talk about. It does no harm. It's all a good thing. From now on, I'll have a pickle in my Christmas tree. Will you? Remember, we're all in this together.
1 comment:
We ( my husband and I read about) thought might to be fun to do for group of card-playing or other who came to our home for day or evening. However, that year our tree was rather heavily decorated with little way to hide one -a pickle that is. The feeling yr we’d forgotten the idea. The next year we’d remembered but found no Christmas pickles available - for sale, loan, order or borrow. So much for that. Lost interest. Interest peaked via this blog
Post a Comment