What Is The Christmas Pickle?

Bella Yancey

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One of the strangest modern Christmas traditions is the Christmas pickle tradition, and almost nobody knows why it started in the first place. The Christmas Pickle was said to be an ancient German custom; it was the last ornament hanging on the Christmas tree, and the first child to find it received a bonus gift. The assumption that it's an ancient German custom, however, appears to be a complete lie. The Christmas pickle is not a popular concept in Germany. The other story relates to Saint Nicholas. It is a story from the Middle Ages about two Spanish children returning home for the holidays from boarding school. The boys were slaughtered and placed in a pickle barrel when they stopped at an inn for the night. The boys were then miraculously brought back to life that evening when St. Nicholas made a stay at the same inn and discovered them in a barrel. In an old folktale, St. Nicholas is said to have saved boys from a barrel, although the barrel actually contained meat, not pickles. The mysterious origin of the Christmas pickle has never been proven, and there are still multiple stories floating around today surrounding the start of a tradition that many people continue to follow in their homes today.