# Hanging a Pickle in your Christmas tree? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 7, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250 "2006-12-07T18:33:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/61 "2006-12-12T03:40:32Z")
Christmas pickle??? I think someone is jerkin’ your gherkin. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/62 "2006-12-12T13:41:35Z")
This thread is a Vlassic already! ---
**Author:** ![RedWood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f08c70/32.png) [@RedWood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedWood)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/63 "2006-12-12T16:17:22Z")
my _Italian_ grandmother had a pickle, and so do I. 🆒 She would buy an eclair or a cream puff from the fancy bakery, and whichever of us found the pickle got the pastry all to ourselves… though I would share it; my sister loves sweet things, I can take or leave them. ---
**Author:** ![Mouse\_Maven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@Mouse\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mouse_Maven)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/64 "2006-12-12T18:33:44Z")
I’m pickled tink by all your answers! Thank you Dopers 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/65 "2006-12-12T20:48:55Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Shee-it, I’m a neopagan. We make up six fake antique traditions before breakfast! I’m working on one involving a goat and some giant squid, but I hear they’ve been doing it somewhere for like 6000 years now. [/QUOTE] It just _seems_ like 6000 years, if you are in the “hot seat”. (Another neopagan here… 🙂 ) I have never heard of putting a pickle on the Tree as well. I would have thought it was something from The Onion. But then my family were all of English descent (grandparents came over in the 1920s). ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/66 "2006-12-12T21:17:19Z")
My family is Dutch as are many in this area, and lots of people here have a Christmas pickle. We didn’t do it growing up but I hear about it mostly from other Dutch families, and I knew the tradition was for the children to look for it Christmas morning and get a special extra gift. Maybe it isn’t German but Dutch in origin? ---
**Author:** ![kmoravec](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/779978/32.png) [@kmoravec](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kmoravec)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2006, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/67 "2006-12-12T22:56:19Z")
Since it is near Christmas, I searched “Christmas Pickle Capital of the World” [http://www.angelfire.com/home/sallinger/holidayhouse/christpickle.htm](http://www.angelfire.com/home/sallinger/holidayhouse/christpickle.htm) This one actually gives a city name Laschau, Germany where it came from. But I could not find Laschau, Germany. There is a Laschau, Austria. It is interesting, but I am not convinced of anything yet. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/68 "2006-12-13T00:57:55Z")
Ok, if you do a web search on Weihnachtsgürke and happen to read German you will find, in addition to credulous English language pages and appendages of the Inge Glas company, who seem to be profiteering from this nonsense, you get many pages in German by Germans expressing slight confusion and amusement about this “old German tradition” that the Americans have. For example, “Christmas pickle and what’s the trend-- tips from Lauscha. . . The Christmas tree ornament in the form of a Christmas pickle comes straight from there. What? You aren’t familiar with the old German Tradition? Above all in the USA it has many fans. The kid that finds the pickle gets gifts first. The pickles finds a keen market above all in America!” [http://www.mdr.de/kultur/kulturkalender/1107033.html](http://www.mdr.de/kultur/kulturkalender/1107033.html) A more complete analysis here, in German and English: > **[Das Mysterium der Weihnachtsgurke/The mysterious Christmas Cucumber](http://bilingualblahblah.blogspot.com/2005/12/das-mysterium-der-weihnachtsgurkethe.html)** > > Vor ungefähr einer Woche las ich in der Zeitung, dass die Weihnachtsgurke DER deutsche Exportschlager in die USA ist. Ich hatte keine Ahnu... Among other bits, “But the biggest problem with the German pickle (saure Gurke, Weihnachtsgurke) tradition is that no one in Germany seems to have ever heard of it. Over the years this question has repeatedly come up on the AATG (German Teachers) forum. Teachers of German in the U.S. and in Europe have never been able to find a native German who has even heard of the pickle legend, much less carried out this Christmas custom. It may have been some German-American invention by someone who wanted to sell more glass ornaments for Christmas. Or could the Weihnachtsgurke be an obscure regional custom that few people are aware of?” It seems to be as much as a German tradition as the Xmas Kiwi or Pomegranate-- or whatever fruit-shaped-ornaments Inge Glas happens to make. There are Xmas cucumbers made in Germany, but the German market for them is incidental, and they mostly get shipped to the states. You will note that the Inge-Glas is in English. . . ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2006, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/69 "2006-12-13T02:45:52Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] Ok, I know I was joking a few posts ago, but seriously? Do it! New traditions are sometimes even more meaningful than old - it’s great to hear my son talk about the bows on the Christmas tree and how we’ve “always” had them and they’re his favorite of the ornaments. Truth? I had a dumpster salvaged tree and $5 to buy ornaments the first year I lived on my own with him in our own apartment, and I went to the dollar store and bought a couple of boxes of gold balls and two sheets of simple bow knots on wire twisties to use as ornaments. It got me the most coverage for the least money. And they’re his favorite holiday “tradition”. He cried actual tears when I tried to set up the tree one year without the cheap, slightly tattered, decade old dollar store bows. The first Christmas he’s on his own, I’m getting him twistie bows from the dollar store for his tree, and when he has kids, he’ll tell them the tradition of bows on the tree from back when he was a kid. To me, they’re a symbol of how with creativity and perseverance, I gave my kid a beautiful Christmas while times were tight. To him, they’re warm fuzzies from his childhood. Buy up half a dozen spider ornaments, write out the story on a notecard, and give them to your friends and family! We can come back to the Dope and see if our grandkids are asking each other where the Christmas Spider tradition really came from! [/QUOTE] That is a really sweet story. _sniffle_ ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/70 "2006-12-14T20:17:42Z")
I’d never heard of this “tradition” until about 10 years ago, when someone contributed one to one of those “round robin” office gift exchanges (not sure what they’re called… you get a random wrapped gift, and can either keep it, or steal an already-unwrapped gift from someone who was ahead of you…). Interestingly, last Christmastime we were in Arizona. At the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, we purchased a “Christmas Chili” ornament with an identical backstory (except for the reference to Germany. This would seem to indicate the whole thing is made up 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/71 "2006-12-24T18:02:00Z")
Here is a [Sunday comic strip](http://www.comics.com/wash/pickles/html/email_comic.html) expounding upon this fine and/or made-up tradition. My pickle is posted [here.](http://www.flickr.com/photos/79839173@N00/331197943/) ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2006, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250/72 "2006-12-25T02:00:15Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] Perhaps in Germany they hang a [pickelhaube](http://www.atlantacutlery.com/webstore/eCat/military_items/other_military/military_reproductions/imperial_german_wwi_era_pickelhaube_helmet.aspx) on the tree. [/QUOTE] Burgermeister Meisterburger! We have a pickle on our tree. I didn’t get it because of any tradition; I got it because I love pickles! (Sorry, **muffin**.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hanging-a-pickle-in-your-christmas-tree/383250.md?page=3)