If you have been shopping for Christmas ornaments in the last few decades, you may have noticed there are a variety of pickle ornaments to choose from but not know why a pickle of all things?
How are pickles and Christmas related? I found a few possibilities but not one of them is iron-clad but the stories certainly are entertaining.
Apparently in Germany when families decorated their trees, a Christmas pickle ornament would be the last ornament hung on Christmas Eve.The story goes that the first child to find the hidden pickle would receive a special gift and good luck in the new year. The biggest problem with this theory is that when surveyed in 2016; 90% of Germans had never heard of said Christmas pickle ornament tradition.
Germany did, however, make glass-blown tree ornaments fashioned after various vegetables, nuts, and fruits which became hugely popular in America when F.W. Woolworth began to import them for his stores. This importation of glass-blown tree ornaments from Germany began in the 1880s and were sold all across America.
It is alleged that around the same time in an effort to sell more ornaments, a rumor was started stating that the glass-blown pickle was steeped in old German tradition.It certainly sounds plausible. Germans love tradition. Germans love pickles.
Alas, the overwhelming evidence is against the Christmas pickle having anything to do with Germany other than being made there.
Another tale is a direct link to old St. Nick himself.
Two Spanish boys were traveling home from boarding school for the holidays. The boys stopped traveling for the night and stayed at an inn.
Apparently, the innkeeper was evil and killed the boys and put them in a pickle barrel. As luck would have it, St. Nick showed up at the exact same inn, found the boys in the barrels, tapped on the barrel with his wand, and miraculously brought them back to life. All these years, I had no clue Santa had a magic wand. Yeah, so this story is really weird.
The last theory is the pickles have a connection to the American Civil War and a Bavarian-born Union soldier by the name of John C. Lower (Hans Lauer). Lower was captured by the Confederates and imprisoned in Georgia (Fort Sumter).
His health began to deteriorate. On his deathbed on Christmas Eve no less, Lower begged the prison guard for one single pickle to eat. It would appear that he was suffering from an acute attack of pickle deficiency because as soon as he ate the pickle, Lower was rejuvenated.
I guess you could speculate it was a magic pickle. Lower was back to health, released from prison, the war ended, and he went home.
Every Christmas Eve from that point on as a way of thanking the pickle for his good fortune of life, Lower hung a pickle, a real pickle, on his Christmas tree. Love it! How do people come up with these stories?
We may never know the true story of how the pickle became a legendary part of Christmas but traditions, customs, and folktales are certainly fun to participate in and learn about. If you are looking for a new tradition to start with your family the Christmas pickle is the real dill.
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