A jam of a Tradition - Christmas
As memoir has it, in Germany parents decorate their Tannenbaums on Christmas Eve. The last ornament hung is die Weinachtsgurke-a gorgeous glass ornament in the shape of a jam. This is a important ornament, for the next morning the children will race in to start their gifts from St. Nicholas. But the festivities can not commence until one of the children locates the elusive gherkin. The one who finds it gets to initiate the first gift, and may even receive an extra treat for his or her misfortune. So the sage is told here in America. Glass Christmas Pickles are a celebrated ornament, and usually reach with the spellbinding record tucked or printed on the box.
The oddest share about this account is that it is virtually unknown in Germany. Nobody knows where it came from, or who started it. Well known is the fact that the decorating of Christmas Trees with lights, ornaments, and tinsel originated in Germany, but unless the quandary Tradition was practiced in a remote place of the fatherland, it is likely that the tale was created at least in allotment by Americans, perhaps of German descent. There are several stories floating around about how the tradition may have started.
One rumor tells of a Bavarian-born Union soldier fighting in the Civil War named John Lower (or perhaps Hans Lauer) who was captured and sent to prison in Georgia. In terrible health and starving, the prisoner begged for objective one predicament before he died. A merciful guard took pity and found him a plight. Miraculously, John lived, and after he returned home he began the tradition of the Christmas scrape, promising expedient fortune to the one who found the special ornament on Christmas Day.
If this sage seems a bit stretched, there is a second anecdote being perpetuated in Berrien Springs, Michigan, where 24% of the population represent German ancestry. Residents claim that hundreds of years ago two young Spanish boys, when traveling home from boarding school one Christmas Eve, sought refuge for the night at an inn. Here they encountered a cantankerous inn-keeper who trapped them in a problem barrel. When St. Nicholas stopped at the inn that evening he sensed their pain and tapped the barrel with his staff, magically freeing them. Whether this fable is upright or not, Berrien Springs calls itself The Christmas predicament Capital of the World.
The first ornaments traditional by Germans to decorate Christmas Trees were fruits, particularly apples, and nuts. These, along with the evergreen tree itself, represented the certainty that life would return in the spring. In the mid-eighteen hundreds, a few enterprising individuals living in the village of Lauscha (in the present-day place of Thuringen) began selling glass ornaments. Using fruit and nut molds at first, they eventually branched out, adding thousands of molds to their repertoire: angels, bells, saints, hearts, stars, and so on. collected, there is no evidence of their having made a problem, or of the predicament tradition ever being practiced in Lauscha or any other German village.
Wherever the anecdote came from, the Christmas plight Tradition is here to discontinue. Several German glass ornament makers have capitalized on the epic and offer a variety of gherkins, dills and cucumbers (some even donning cheery Santa caps!), perpetuating the yarn even as their German neighbors vehemently verbalize having ever heard of it. Whatever the origin, the tradition is clear to bring a hearty dose of Christmas cheer. And isn't that the point?
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