Today, I received a very special present. A pickle ornament to hide in my Christmas tree. Do you know anything about the "Pickle in the Christmas tree tradition?" Until two weeks, I was completely uniformed about the pickle in the tree tradition. At that time my friends had just put up their Christmas tree and Linda told me it even had a pickle hidden in it. I said "Why would you hide a pickle in your Christmas tree? What a strange thing to do." All the time, I'm wondering who on earth hides a great green pickle in a tree?
Slowly, Linda explained the old German tradition. Since my mother was German, why had I never heard of this "old German tradition?" Of course I searched the internet and sure enough there is a pickle in the tree tradition. No one really knows where it started and why a pickle was chosen as the object to be hidden, but it is something of a feature at Christmastime. It seems to be more German than any other ethnicity too.
Last week, at my art class and I asked if folks knew about the pickle tradition and about half of the class did -- the other half were in the dark like me. Do you know about the pickle tradition? Do you have a pickle hidden in your Christmas tree?
My pickle ornament came with a little story explaining the tradition. Apparently, a pickle ornament is hidden in the Christmas tree, and on Christmas morning the first person (usually a child) to find the pickle gets a special prize. So now my tree has a pickle. So, if you want to have a bit more excitement around your tree, hide a pickle in it. Remember, we're all in this together.
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