Knitted pickles for Christmas?

Is a knitted pickled cucumber in a red and white hat really a Christmas tradition in some places? I subscribe to Yarnspirations on YouTube and got a link to a video showing Christmas gifts to knit and crochet, and this was one of them. My first reaction was “What on Earth has that got to do with the birth of Christ?” but then I thought, “All right, people do things in different ways, maybe this is just one of those things.” What do you think?

Link to video (I hope) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYszWVDOkyM

My husband’s aunt and uncle used to host the extended family at their house for Christmas, and they would hide a pickle ornament on their tree. Whoever found it won an extra present. It was a lot of fun!

Do you know the origin of the tradition? You know, like lighting lights at the darkest time of the year to ask the Sun to come back and that sort of thing. I know that Christmas nowadays is as much a social occasion as a religious one, so I wondered if this was part of something else. It does sound like fun, though :slight_smile:

@JollyLamb, we did that to for our kids. One year the one who found the pickle got a jar of dills , not to impressive so I had to up my game to keep interest going, so it got to a $100 bill that I put in an English walnut that hung on the tree. While they were looking for the pickle the nut was right there. The winner who found the pickle had to break the nut to get the reward. OK, so the next year was much more excitement about finding that pickle with everyone involved, thinking money now! Well not what they expected, it went back to a jar of pickles : / You just never know!

I just looked it up and found this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pickle

I have seen the occasional pickle ornament, but hadn’t given it a thought until you brought this up.

Actually, a glass ornament makes more sense to me than a knitted pickle. There are all sorts of ornaments and decorations that, at first glance, don’t seem to have anything to do with Christmas, but if you look at them as part of celebrations generally, they seem perfectly reasonable. Interesting :slight_smile: