Hang a pickle on Your Christmas tree

As crazy American traditions would have it, hanging a pickle on the Christmas Tree is a popular and bizarre ritual. It is connected to the German American folklore of receiving good fortune in the year to come and yielding an extra special gift under the tree to the lucky person with the keen sense to spot the prize.

The tradition of the Christmas pickle ornament to German heritage has a variety of historical originations. One story credits a Bavarian soldier during the American Civil War for requesting a pickle while starving at battle, which is presumed to save his life. Once the war was over and he returned home, the soldier hung a pickle in his tree annually to give credit to the lifesaving treat.

Other traditions suggest origin of the tradition is from France or Germany, but none the less, in true American fashion the tradition of hanging a pickle in the tree has been celebrated for centuries with glass blown ornaments at Woolworths and Christmas Pickle parades in Barren Springs, Michigan.

Glass blown ornamental pickles can be found in boutiques, floral shops, and Amazon, jumping on the American bandwagon of consumerism for the holidays, but what they represent to the gardener has a much richer and deeper meaning.

For the gardener, it is a wonderful reflection of the growing season as another year comes to a close, and a symbol of the labor and toil that sparks of love with cultivating the soil. A pickle may represent a well-preserved harvest from your garden, or the art of transforming food into magical wonders. Just as the blown glass ornament offers wonder and delight to the tree, the pickle offers the same to the senses as a culinary treat.