by: Christina Marfice, BestReviews Staff
‘The Christmas Pickle’ is a holiday tradition every family will love
If you’ve spotted pickle ornaments in stores this holiday season and wondered who on earth is decorating their tree with a salty deli snack, this article is for you. Christmas pickles are a holiday tradition for many families — and one you might want to adopt, especially if you have kids.
The tradition goes like this: On Christmas Eve, parents put a pickle ornament on the family Christmas tree. On Christmas morning, the first child to find the pickle gets to open the first gift, receives a special present or gets to hand out the gifts to other family members to open.
Why a Christmas pickle ornament?
Where the tradition came from is a little bit of a mystery. The Christmas pickle was originally called Weihnachtsgurke, a German word, which suggests it originated there. But modern Germans don’t follow this custom, so that’s unlikely. While many pickle ornaments are made in Germany, they are exported to other countries.
Another theory is that Woolworth’s, an old, now-defunct chain of five-and-dime stores, started importing the pickle ornaments in the late 1800s and made up the story to help boost their sales in the U.S. Now, the tradition seems most popular in the midwest region of the U.S., particularly in Michigan, where there is a large population of people of German descent.
No matter how pickle ornaments became popular, this tradition is likely to be a hit with your kids. A pickle ornament can also be a great gift to someone to help them start this fun tradition with their family.