Below are two verison of the German Pickle Story I was told about while I was living in Germany. Are they true or not. To me it does not really matter. Since I have come back from Germany the Pickle I bought in Lauscha, Germany the home of the first Christmas Ornament is carried on each Christmas Morning here in my home. My Grandchildren love searching for the pickle an they all have such fun searching for it. Who ever finds the pickle gets a special treat and then a weeee treat is given to the others. Last Christmas we were setting around and I had temporary forgotten about the "Pickle" and I was ask when can we search for the "Pickle" soooo the "Pickle Tradition" is alive and well in my family. vbgOne 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 poor health and starving, the prisoner begged for just one pickle before he died. A merciful guard took pity and found him a pickle. Miraculously, John lived, and after he returned home he began the tradition of the Christmas Pickle, promising good fortune to the one who found the special ornament on Christmas Day.
The first ornaments used 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 state 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.
