What is the pickle tradition?
Well the pickle tradition is a tradition that has been in my family for a very long time. It started when my grandparents were shopping in a mall around Christmas time and found a pickle ornament! Of course they were curious so they read the label. It said that the pickle tradition is a German tradition where you hide the pickle in the Christmas tree on the night before Christmas and whoever finds it, gets a ‘pickle present’ that they can open before Christmas day.
Where does it come from?
Of course they bought it and gave it to my family as a present, and we all loved it. later on we asked some of our German friends about the tradition and they said they had never heard of it. So after some searching around we discovered that the pickle tradition might not be German!
There are a lot of different theories like that it IS German, or that it is American and to help it sell, people said it was German so people would be more interested in buying a foreign tradition. Basically we don’t know where exactly it started, but we do know that it is an awesome and quirky tradition that we all love.
I always love mentioning ‘the pickle tradition’ around people because they always get strange ideas about my family hiding ACTUAL pickles in our tree. So I told my host family and explained what it actually is. They thought it sounded like lots of fun! So before Christmas I ordered a pickle ornament from Amazon, and did the pickle tradition with my host family!
After eating Christmas dinner on Christmas eve, I hid the pickle in their Christmas tree. Then they all came back into the room and got to search for the pickle. (It’s harder than you would think.) One of my hos brothers was the one to find the pickle after about ten minutes of all of them searching. So after a quick picture with the pickle, he got his pickle present. A book in French and English called Le petit guide de survie aux USA.
It was so much fun to share my tradition with my host family, and they told me that from this year on, they had a feeling it would become a regular tradition.
I also celebrated this tradition on New Years day with a Belgian family in Belgium, they also adored the tradition and decided that it would be a regular thing with them too.
It is a great fun tradition and I suggest everyone check out amazon to buy your very own christmas pickle! It’s a great tradition and you will all love it! And make sure to comment if you have an idea of where you think the pickle tradition comes from!