Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Pickle

One of my favorite traditions is hiding my pickle ornament. A few years ago I ran across a beaded paper pickle ornament pattern. I thought to myself, now why in the world would anyone want to stitch and hang on their tree a pickle?
So I did a little research and found (now if I get this wrong, please do not be offended) that it is an old German tradition to place a pickle ornament on the tree, hidden away so you have to look for it. I have read two different versions. One says to put it on as the first ornament and the other says to put it on as the last ornament. I chose to do it first.
Christmas Eve, the children look for the pickle. The first one to find it gets a special gift.
I carefully stitched my ornament on paper, with blending filament and beads. Cut it carefully out around the edges. It is beautiful.
I then place my pickle on the tree. I only have one daughter, but I have also have two nieces that I am close to. I tell them about the ornament and the game. My dd is about 15, one niece is 11 and the other is about 3 on that Christmas.
They almost tore my tree apart looking for it and when it was found by my dd they fought over it. I ended up almost losing the tree and the ornament. I gave them all a gift (which I had intended on doing anyway).
That was the first and last year we held an official contest. From then on, my dd just simply looked for the ornament and let me know where it was.
I now have two grandsons. Last year my oldest, then 5, found it with help from his mom.
I now have my big tree, with all the stitched ornaments, at my work. It is admired by many and gives me great pleasure to look at and remember the past everyday from the day after Thanksgiving until New Years.
In my coming posts I will be talking about more Christmas tradition. Did I tell you about my Star of David made from gold beads?
And the year we had the haunted, needs to be in a brothel, red tree?
Come back often and remember with me these fun times. And think about all of your fun times during this holiday.

15 comments:

Andrea said...

what a special story, I love it. Will be checking back for more, during the holidays, something to look forward to!

Unknown said...

look I guess you can teach old dogs new trick. thank you much for the history. it is always interesting to learn other cutlers

Rene la Frog said...

I was thinking of doing a pickle for my grandsons to have on their tree.

Unknown said...

What a nice tradition. I think I might make a special ornament and do the same. I am not sure that it'll be a pickle though :)
Heidi-ILCS

Gabi said...

What a beautiful story. I would love to see a picture of your pickle ornament.

Karin said...

What a great tradition for the holidays. I love the story of the pickle.

MommaC said...

i was 15 and do not remember trying to kill anyone over the pickle. I told you my memory is leaving me.

Maureen said...

That's such a nice tradition - I can just imagine the state of the tree after they were looking for it lol!!

Carolyn NC said...

Love the story - I love Christmas and all the traditions that go with it!

Cindy F. said...

So glad you shared such a wonderful story:)

Kathy said...

I love this legend. I have heard difernt versions as well. Are you going to revive the game once the grandsons are a little older?
Oh, and do you have a photo of the ornament somewhere? It sounds pretty

Sharon said...

What a neat thing, I have never heard of that before.

Carolyn NC said...

Donna - you have been tagged again - but this one is different. See my blog!

Einschies blog said...

This is soo funny ro read...ähem, I am German but never heart about that tradition and I am not sure what a pickle is??? Can you descibe it????

Gaby

Petra said...

I asked my parents, grandparents and aunt...we are all born in Germany, we've never heard this tradition before, so I don't think you can credit the Germans, LOL!