What does a pickle ornament mean and where did it come from?
The Christmas pickle ornament tradition lives on — Photo courtesy of lug1 / iStock Via Getty Images
While standing before my fifth-grade class, Kristin G. opened a box filled with cotton and pulled out a Christmas ornament. “This is my family’s Christmas pickle ornament,” she said. “It’s really old, and it’s an ancient German tradition to hide it on the Christmas tree. If you find it first, you get good luck. This year, it’s my year to hide it.”
I remember this innocuous little anecdote 20 years later because, when she said, “…hide it,” the ornament slipped out of her hand, hit the desk, and exploded into a million pieces. There was a moment of perfect silence, and then Jesse S. burst into uncontrollable laughter. Mrs. Fridman screamed, “Jesse!” and dragged him by the arm out of the room while Kristin stood rigid in shock.
We could hear Mrs. Fridman in the hall shouting at Jesse, who was still in hysterics, “You’re laughing at her? She just destroyed her family tradition!” Jesse laughed harder, gasping, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Kristin began sobbing. We all sat there, mouths agape, paralyzed with horror and joy, wondering if this meant we wouldn’t have to do our presentations.
I went home and asked my mother why I, a kid from a German family, brought in Swedish meatballs instead of a Christmas pickle. Turns out, the Christmas pickle isn’t an ancient German tradition at all, but one born right here in the good ol’ U.S.A.
The fuzzy history of the Christmas pickle ornament
Hanging the Christmas pickle ornament is a highlight for a lot of families during the holidays — Photo courtesy of Meagan Baker / iStock Via Getty Images
Many German-American families have Christmas pickle ornaments. (My parents had never heard of them, but they went out and bought one for us the following year.) The tradition varies, but it usually looks like the one Kristin described: St. Nick (or someone in the family) hides the pickle on Christmas Eve, and the first to find it either gets an extra present, the right to open the first present, or good luck for a year.
The tradition is known as Weihnachtsgurke, which translates to “Christmas Eve cucumber.”
There are a few origin stories to the Christmas pickle, and they’re a little dark. One claims that two Spanish children were murdered by an innkeeper, who then hid their bodies in a pickle barrel. St. Nick came along, tapped on the barrel with his cane, and the kids miraculously came back to life.
Berrien Springs, a town in the cucumber-producing southwest region of Michigan, pushes this story. From 1992 to 2003, Berrien Springs held an annual Christmas Pickle Parade, led by a Grand Dillmeister, and concluded with a Santa Claus who handed out fresh pickles instead of candy or presents. (For anyone who loves a good pickle parade, the event returned in 2024 and 2025.)
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Another tale features a German immigrant and soldier during the Civil War. The story goes that Confederates held the man as a prisoner of war. He was near death and asked one of the guards to take pity on him and give him a pickle. So moved, the guard gave the man a pickle, and he miraculously recovered.
There’s a problem with these stories, though: No one in Germany seems to have heard of them. Or, if they have, they’ve heard about them from Americans. The traditions don’t even match up — Germans don’t open their gifts on Christmas morning; they do it on Christmas Eve. And in Germany, St. Nick comes much earlier in the month, so the pickle would have long been found when Weihnacht rolled around.
It seems that there is no Christmas pickle ornament in Germany. So where did it come from?
The big business of selling pickle ornaments
The Christmas pickle ornament tradition is as American as apple pie — Photo courtesy of Dusty Pixel / E+
As best anyone can guess, a big corporation created Weihnachtgurke to sell more pickle ornaments. Woolworth’s, the American five-and-dime store, started importing German-made, glass-blown Christmas ornaments in the 1880s. Many of the ornaments were shaped like fruits and vegetables — and pickles. They possibly didn’t sell well because, for one, they were pickles, and their color was roughly the same as an evergreen, making them difficult to spot on a Christmas tree. They weren’t big sellers.
While the specifics are lost to history, some industrious Woolworth’s employee may have seen the surplus of pickle ornaments, noticed that they came from Germany, and created the “ancient German tradition.” The legend, for whatever reason, took off.
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There’s no sign that the pickles held any special importance to the German ornament-makers. Still, German families who were maybe a few generations disconnected from their homeland saw the pickles, thought it was a nice way to tie their heritage into their Christmas celebrations, and bought one for their tree. Their popularity in the United States has somewhat ironically led to increased sales in Germany and Europe.
Where can you buy a Christmas pickle ornament?
Whoever finds the pickle ornament on the Christmas tree gets good luck — Photo courtesy of GrabillCreative / E+
Today, Christmas pickle ornaments have become a popular trend. You can find them anywhere ornaments are sold, including at Target, World Market, and online. Families everywhere, German or not, hang them on their Christmas trees, possibly sharing the “ancient German tradition” — or making up their own stories and starting their own traditions.
