2021 Home For the Holidays

2021 Home for the Holidays Lincoln Daily News November 24, 2021 Page 29 merican’s share a number of Christmas traditions like decorating the tree, baking holiday goodies, caroling, hanging stockings and driving around to see Christmas lights. However, in other parts of the world, they have different traditions to mark the holidays. Some share similarities with “American” traditions. Other traditions differ and have interesting stories of Christmas traditions around the world origin. The Christmas Pickle For example, some German American families have Christmas pickle ornaments, but the origin of this tradition is not certain. In “A Fuzzy History of the Christmas Pickle” Matt Hershberger says, “St. Nick (or someone in the family) hides the pickle on Christmas Eve.” Then, “the first to find it either gets an extra present, the right to open the first present, or good luck for a year.” There is more than one story on how the tradition originated. Some sources say no one in Germany seems to have heard them. Hershberger says the tradition may have been created by Woolworths. In the 1880s, Woolworth’s imported “German-made glass-blown Christmas ornaments” and among those shaped like fruits or vegetables was a pickle. A Continued n By Angela Reiners