Christmas Pickle Ornament: Meaning, Real Origin and How to Play
What the Christmas pickle ornament is, why 91 percent of Germans have never heard of it, where the custom really came from and how families play the hunt.
Somewhere on millions of American trees a small green glass pickle is hiding. This guide explains what the custom is, what the record says about its supposed German roots, which legends are attached to it and how families play it. It does not pretend the pickle is ancient, and it does not promise that finding it changes your year.
Contents
The Christmas pickle is a green glass ornament shaped like a pickle that is hidden on the tree on Christmas Eve; the first person to find it on Christmas morning gets a small extra gift or opens the first present. It is usually sold as an old German custom, but a 2016 YouGov survey found that 91 percent of Germans had never heard of it. The most likely origin is American: German glass ornaments sold in US stores from the 1880s, plus a good sales story. Finding the pickle is a game and a family ritual; there is no evidence that it brings a year of luck.
In a 2016 survey, 91 percent of adults in Germany had never heard of the Christmas pickle custom.
Source/tradition: YouGov Deutschland, December 20, 2016 (n = 2,057)
Woolworth stores sold imported German glass ornaments, including fruit and vegetable shapes, from the 1880s.
Source/tradition: Farmers' Almanac, 2020/2026; Whychristmas.com, 2026
Berrien Springs, Michigan, calls itself the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World and held a pickle parade until 2003.
Source/tradition: Farmers' Almanac, 2020/2026
A Bavarian-born Civil War prisoner started the custom after a guard gave him a pickle.
Source/tradition: Ornament-card legend; no documentary source
Saint Nicholas freed two boys trapped in a pickle barrel.
Source/tradition: Reworked Saint Nicholas legend (originally a meat barrel)
Families hide the pickle on Christmas Eve and the finder gets a small extra gift or the first present.
Source/tradition: Contemporary American family practice
Finding the pickle brings a year of good luck.
Source/tradition: No evidence
VERIFIED = verifiable in scientific or official sources · TRADITIONAL = historically or culturally recorded · LIVED PRACTICE = widely practiced, experiential knowledge · NOT PROVEN = spiritual interpretation, not scientifically established.
Quick answer
The Christmas pickle is a green glass ornament shaped like a pickle that is hidden on the tree on Christmas Eve; the first person to find it on Christmas morning gets a small extra gift or opens the first present. It is usually sold as an old German custom, but a 2016 YouGov survey found that 91 percent of Germans had never heard of it. The most likely origin is American: German glass ornaments sold in US stores from the 1880s, plus a good sales story. Finding the pickle is a game and a family ritual; there is no evidence that it brings a year of luck.
What the Christmas pickle is
The Christmas pickle is a glass ornament shaped like a gherkin, usually green, sometimes glittered, about three to four inches long. On Christmas Eve, after the children are in bed, an adult tucks it deep into the branches, where green glass on green needles is hard to see.
On Christmas morning the hunt begins. Whoever spots the pickle first wins. What they win depends on the family: an extra small present, the right to open the first gift, the job of handing out presents, or simply bragging rights until next year. Many packages sold in American stores add a printed card that calls the winner lucky for the whole coming year.
That card is where most people first meet the story. It almost always says the same thing: this is an old German tradition, called Weihnachtsgurke, and German parents have hidden pickles for generations.
The German story, and why Germans do not recognize it
The German story falls apart on contact with Germans. In November 2016 the polling firm YouGov asked a representative sample of 2,057 adults in Germany about the custom. The result, published that December: 91 percent had never heard of it. Five percent knew of it but did not practice it, and two percent said they did.
Two details in that survey are telling. Among people with a migration background, slightly more practiced it than among people without one, and among families with children the number was higher than among the childless. That pattern fits a custom that traveled back into Germany through American relatives, expat families and holiday markets, not one that grew up there.
Germans who do know the word often learned it from Americans. Ornament makers in Thuringia sell glass pickles today, and some German shops now stock them precisely because American visitors ask for them. The custom exists in Germany in the way souvenirs exist: real, but recently imported.
Why the German label stuck
Germany gave America the decorated Christmas tree, the glass bauble and a large share of its nineteenth-century immigrants. Calling a new custom German borrowed all of that authority at once. It also made a single cheap ornament sound like heritage, which is a powerful thing to print on a box.
Where the glass pickle really came from
The ornament itself really is German in origin. Hand-blown glass Christmas ornaments are associated with Lauscha, a glassmaking town in the Thuringian Forest, where artisans were blowing decorative glass for trees by the middle of the nineteenth century. They made far more than balls: fruit, nuts, birds, vegetables, pine cones and, yes, gherkins.
American retail did the rest. In the 1880s the Woolworth stores began selling imported German glass ornaments, and within a few decades they were a mass market item. A green glass pickle was one shape among hundreds. The idea that it carried a special role on the tree appears in American sources and on American packaging, not in German folklore collections.
The most widely accepted explanation, repeated by the Farmers' Almanac and by Christmas historians, is that a merchant or wholesaler needed a reason for customers to buy a pickle in particular, and supplied one. No one has identified the person or the year. It may simply have grown from a store display, a catalog blurb or one family's game that caught on.
Glass ornaments themselves descend from older hanging glass in the home, such as the witch ball that was hung in windows to catch the eye and, as some said, catch ill will. The pickle is a far younger cousin with a much lighter job.
The legends: a prisoner, a barrel and a poor village
Because a Christmas custom without a story feels thin, three legends have grown around the pickle. All three are told as fact on ornament cards. None has a documentary source.
The prisoner of war. A Bavarian-born soldier fighting for the Union is captured and held in a Confederate prison camp in Georgia. Starving on Christmas Eve, he begs a guard for one last pickle. The guard gives him one, he recovers, and after the war he hangs a pickle on his tree every year. Some versions give the soldier a name; none of them cites a record.
The barrel. Two boys traveling home for the holidays are trapped by a wicked innkeeper in a pickle barrel, and Saint Nicholas frees them. This is a reworking of a much older Saint Nicholas legend in which the victims are hidden in a barrel of salted meat, not pickles.
The poor village. In one version, a family in the Spreewald, the cucumber-growing region southeast of Berlin, is too poor for decorations and hangs a pickle instead, and emigrants carry the custom to America. It is a charming story; the Spreewald is famous for pickles, but not for this.
Legends like these are worth knowing as folklore in their own right. They show what Americans wanted the custom to mean: resilience, rescue and an old-country thrift. They are not evidence of where it came from.
Berrien Springs, the self-declared pickle capital
The custom has one place that claims it officially. Berrien Springs, a village in southwestern Michigan settled in part by German immigrants, declared itself the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World and held a holiday pickle festival. From the 1990s until 2003 it included a parade led by a figure called the Grand Dillmaster. The pickle celebration has since moved to summer.
It is a good example of how an invented tradition becomes a lived one. Nobody in Berrien Springs needed the pickle to be medieval. The town made it local, gave it a parade and a pun, and enjoyed it.
Temple Tip
Hang the pickle last, after every other ornament is on the tree, and hang it at the height of the youngest hunter's eyes, not the tallest adult's. Green glass on fir is hard enough. If the pickle is buried at six feet, the game becomes a lesson in who is tallest, and the point of a small shared ritual on a big morning is that anyone can win it.
House rules: how families actually play
Most families settle on a few house rules, often without ever writing them down:
Who hides it. Usually a parent, on Christmas Eve, after the last child is asleep. In families with older children the previous year's winner hides it, which keeps the game going as kids grow.
When the hunt starts. Before any presents are opened is the most common rule. That makes the pickle the first event of the morning and gives it a little ceremony.
What the winner gets. A small extra present, the first gift, the role of handing out presents, or the right to hide the pickle next year. Some families give the winner the last cookie or the best seat at breakfast.
Touching rules. Look, do not touch, is a sensible rule with glass on the tree. The winner points and calls it out.
Some households reset the game each morning between Christmas and New Year with a smaller prize. That stretches one ornament across the quiet week that New Year luck rituals then close.
Pickle hunt variations compared
How families vary the pickle hunt
| Version | Who hides it | Prize | Works best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic | A parent on Christmas Eve | Small extra gift or first present | Families with young children |
| Winner hides | Last year's finder | Hiding rights plus a treat | Older kids and teens |
| Daily reset | Rotates each night until New Year | Small daily prize | Long holiday weeks at home |
| Adults only | Host of the party | First pick of a gift exchange | Friend groups and offices |
| Two pickles | Two hiders, one each | Two winners | Large families who want fewer tears |
Quiz: which pickle hunt fits your house?
Five quick questions. The result suggests a version of the hunt for your household.
Voices from practice
Families who keep the custom often report that the pickle matters more as children get older, not less. The presents change; the five minutes of searching the tree together stays the same, and it is often the part adults remember.
Parents frequently describe the pickle as a gentle way to slow down a frantic morning. One small search before the wrapping paper flies gives everyone a moment to look at the tree they decorated.
People who learned the story as German heritage and later discovered its American roots tend to keep the custom anyway. A tradition does not need to be old to be yours.
What we don't promise
We do not claim the Christmas pickle is an old German custom. The evidence points the other way.
We do not promise that the person who finds the pickle will have a lucky year. That line is printed on many ornament cards, and it is a nice thing to say on Christmas morning, but no study or historical source supports it.
And we do not suggest that any ornament, glass or crystal, changes what happens to a household. What a custom like this can do is mark a moment and give a family something it does together every year.
Practically: how to work with this
A custom works when it is easy to repeat. These steps keep it that way.
- Pick one ornament. Glass is traditional; a shatterproof pickle is wiser with toddlers or pets.
- Agree the rules once. Who hides it, when the hunt starts, what the winner gets. Write them on the box.
- Hide it last and low. Hang it after everything else is on the tree, within reach of the smallest hunter.
- Start the morning with it. Hunt before gifts, so the game is not lost in the rush.
- Tell the real story. Kids enjoy the legends; older kids enjoy knowing they are legends and that Americans made the custom their own.
- Store it separately. Keep the pickle in its own box so it is the last thing packed and the first thing found next December.
If you want a second small light-themed ritual for the season, the candle in the window is an older Irish Christmas custom with a well-documented history.
From our shelf
Moon Phase Crystal Suncatcher
The pickle hunt is about one piece of glass that catches the eye. If you want a hanging glass charm that stays up after the tree comes down, this suncatcher throws small rainbows across a window all winter. It is decoration with a story you give it, not a luck guarantee. Currently $21.95.
More in gift sets and ritual kits and altar and home.
Frequently asked questions
What does the pickle on a Christmas tree mean?
It is the prize in a hiding game. The pickle ornament is hidden on Christmas Eve and the first person to find it on Christmas morning gets a small extra gift or opens the first present.
Is the Christmas pickle really a German tradition?
Almost certainly not. A 2016 YouGov survey found that 91 percent of Germans had never heard of it. The glass ornaments are German-made, but the custom appears to be American.
Where did the Christmas pickle come from?
The most likely explanation is American retail: German glass ornaments, including pickles, were sold in US stores from the 1880s, and a story was attached to sell them. No inventor or date is documented.
What does the person who finds the pickle get?
It varies by family: an extra small present, the first gift, the role of handing out presents or the right to hide the pickle next year.
Does finding the pickle bring good luck?
That is what many ornament cards say. It is a nice wish, not a documented effect.
Why is Berrien Springs, Michigan, called the Christmas Pickle Capital?
The village declared itself the capital and held a pickle festival, including a parade from the 1990s until 2003. The celebration has since moved to summer.
Sources & further reading
- YouGov Deutschland. Brauchtum: Weihnachtsgurke in Deutschland weitgehend unbekannt. Survey of 2,057 adults, published December 20, 2016.
- Mayntz, Melissa. Christmas Pickle Tradition: Origin, Legends, and How To Play. Farmers' Almanac, 2020, updated 2026.
- Whychristmas.com. The Christmas Pickle. Updated 2026.
- Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
- Forbes, Bruce David. America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories. University of California Press, 2015.
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