The popular U.S. tradition is generally thought to be German, and there are explanations all over the Internet asserting as much. But it turns out that might not really be the case.
According to a spokesperson for the company, the pickle ornament has been the company's best-selling ornament for over 37 years, with more than 25,000 sold in 2017.
The spokesperson added that company founder Tim Merck originally got his start importing ornaments being made in the town of Lausch, Germany, to the U.S. in the early 1980s. Merck himself wrote the company's version of the pickle tradition, the spokesperson toldOther places celebrate Christmas with pickles, too.
Barrien Springs, Michigan, used to hold a Christmas Pickle Festival in the 1990s, according to Dick Schinkel, one of the festival's organizers and former president of the town's historical society. But, he said the town really borrowed the idea from Old World Christmas. However, since the town sold so many pickle ornaments, Pickle Packers International, the trade group for the pickle industry, dubbed Barrien Springs as the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World in the 1990s.Silke-Maria Weineck, a professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan said that it doesn't really sound like a German Christmas tradition to her.
She added that even though most Germans don't know about it, it is possible that hiding a pickle could have been popular in just one region of Germany."It could have been one immigrant family's tradition, for all we know," she said."I could also imagine that we were originally dealing with an actual pickle prepared for the holidays. Americans are notoriously quick to claim something is 'a tradition.
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