Let’s Find Santa’s Pickle
So I hear there is an old folktale in parts of Europe in which an innkeeper stuffed two children in a pickle barrel on Christmas day. Interestingly enough, I cannot seem to find any information suggesting why said innkeeper would have done so. But regardless of motive, two children are now sealed in a pickle barrel. Then St. Nicholas happens by and saves the children from the pickle barrel by tapping it with his cane.
This story evidently begot a tradition in which a blown-glass Christmas tree ornament in the likeness of a pickle is placed on the family Christmas tree on Christmas Eve - presumably by Santa Claus himself. On Christmas morning, all the children run to the tree to be the first to find the pickle. Oh how they laugh and frolic! Then the lucky child who finds the pickle is rewarded with an extra gift from Santa, and gets to open the first gift of the morning.
So, in a nutshell, grab Santa’s pickle and win a toy. Then there’s the whole lap-sitting thing. I’m just sayin’…
Watch out for that pickle, kids.
Bye for now.
December 2nd, 2003 at 10:10 pm
My family actually observes this tradition. My dad’s family is German and we have done it as long as I can remember. I tried to find some info about it, but didn’t find much, but it seems to be a perhaps German-American tradition. Perhaps stemming from one of the German communities up North (MI) where they also hold pickle festivals and such.
Here is a page claiming to debunk the traditional belief that it is a old German legend: http://www.serve.com/shea/germusa/pickle.htm
December 2nd, 2003 at 10:22 pm
Cool, thanks for the link, Gesikah!
When I was looking this up, I found the Germans mentioned a lot, but I’m not entirely convinced either. I also saw something that claimed it was a Victorian tradition, which suggests British heritage, but I doubt that too.
Actually, I think the most likely explanation is someone made a bunch of pickle ornaments and made up a story to sell them.
December 3rd, 2003 at 5:12 am
Justis, we need to collaborate on an article on all the dirty terminology in football. I mean the announcers say stuff like “he just stuck it in”, “he put it throught the uprights”. Just listen sometime with a critical attitude, and assess just how “dirty” some of it sounds.
October 26th, 2004 at 11:15 pm
We have a pickle and love it!