GCAHKT2 A Christmas Pickle
Type: Traditional | Size: Micro | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: 2lablovers @ | Hide Date: 12/22/2023 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 58.127 W104° 57.007 | Last updated: 01/18/2024 | Fav points: 0
     

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We love Christmas but had never heard of this until a few weeks ago.    We now have a pickle hidden in our  tree waiting for the grandkids on Christmas Eve.   

from WhyChristmas.com  Christmas Pickle

The tradition of the Christmas Pickle has got to be one of the strangest modern Christmas customs, in that no one is quite sure why it exists at all!

In the 1880s Woolworth stores started selling glass ornaments imported from Germany and some were in the shape of various fruit and vegetables. It seems that pickles must have been among the selection!

Around the same time it was claimed that the Christmas Pickle was a very old German tradition and that the pickle was the last ornament hung on the Christmas tree and then the first child to find the pickle got an extra present.

However, the claim that it's an old German tradition seems to be a total myth! Not many people in Germany have even heard of the Christmas Pickle! (Similarly in Russia virtually no one knows the supposedly Russian story of Babushka!)

Some families now have the tradition of hanging the pickle on the tree, with the first person/child to find it getting a present. But it probably didn't start in Germany!

Christmas Pickle Legends

There are two other rather far-fetched stories linking the pickle to Christmas.

One features a fighter in the American Civil War who was born in Bavaria (an area of what is now Germany). He was a prisoner, and starving, he begged a guard for one last pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and gave a pickle to him. The pickle gave him the mental and physical strength to live on!

The other story is linked to St. Nicholas. It's a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from a boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the evil innkeeper, killed the boys and put them in a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, and found the boys in the barrel and miraculously bought them back to life!

There is an old legend about St. Nicholas rescuing boys from a barrel but the barrel was originally holding meat for pies - not pickles!

So it's most likely that an ornament salesmen, with a lot of spare pickles to sell, invented the legend of the Christmas Pickle!

The American city of Berrien Springs, MI (also known as the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World) has an annual pickle festival held during the early part of December.

01/05/2024 By BPickens
Quick find! Cute container. TFTC

01/02/2024 By OneKindWord
Enjoyed the short walk to GZ on a beautiful day, and then spotted the cache quickly. Very nice job on the container and camo! TFTC

12/30/2023 By Sqweeter
Been battling a cold I got just after Christmas so the walk felt good on this warm afternoon. Cute container. Gets a fav. TFTH SL

12/29/2023 By SeekDaCache
We were out scouting for and area to hide a cache and stopped by to grab this recently published cache, since we were close-by. Broke out the Geo-bike since we had it with us. Nice hide, SL,TFTC

12/26/2023 By denbomans
It is the day after Christmas and all through the land the people were stirring, getting back to the task at hand. Geocaching of course! We saw this great new hide available and decided to make a quick trip and try and make the find. Got it! SL and returned to its home.
Thanks for the fun!

12/25/2023 By GanderGoose
With a twinkle in our eyes, Spartacus Geodog and I flew out the door when we saw your new cache notification and hopped in the geosleigh. We had hoped to beat St. Nicholas to the FTF, or in this case, Edwards654. Being second to find this great cache is still delightful. To get in our daily walk, we parked at the corner by the school at the dead-end barrier and trekked on the dirt and pavement to GZ. Fun cache - gets a favorite point! Enjoyed reading the legends of the Christmas Pickle. Which one is the most believable? Thank you for the new placement and helping me gain the End of 2023 souvenir without driving 20 miles, 2lablovers!

12/25/2023 By Edwards654
FTF at 903 a.m. our family doesn't come for Christmas brunch until 11:00 so we drove up to find this one hidden by our dear geocaching friends. Merry Christmas to all

12/25/2023 By IgnotusPeverell
Published