My mom started doing the pickle when the grandkids showed up and got old enough to search a tree, been doing it for years. I suspect she bought the pickle kit at a Hallmark store. We’re about as Polish as you can get, never heard of this until she started doing it. My wife is quite a bit German, she also never heard of it until my mom started doing it. Either way it was fun for the kids but to my knowledge none of the kids picked up the tradition.
And don’t get me started on Elf on a Shelf. I have a shelf elf that’s over 50 years old and we never used it like the new tradition. He and his brother just sat on the shelf. They did sit with their legs pulled up under their arms. One was red and one was green.
This isn’t mine but it’s the same era around 1960 or so.
Those were called Pixie elves or Knee-hugger elves and were a common Christmas decoration in the 50s. They were manufactured in Japan by a company called Yuletide. The Elf on the Shelf nonsense came from a book written in 2004. It caught on big in America thanks to promotion by Walmart and some country music stars. The family that wrote Elf on the Shelf it claims to have played that game in their family since the 70s. We always had some of those antiques around, but luckily, my kids were too grown to fall into the surveillance state scam. Snitches get stitches, Elfie.
When I was a child we had a similar game to be sure Jesus showed up. I believe our guardian angel was the snitch.
There was an empty crib in the house, a very small one, we had to put straw in the crib but we had to earn the straw through good deeds. We had to be sure Baby Jesus had a nice soft bed by Christmas Eve so He could be placed in the crib. Baby Jesus was never put in the manger until Christmas Eve.
When our daughter visits anyone’s house, including ours, and Baby Jesus is in the nativity before Christmas Eve she will hide him and maybe tell them where He is before Christmas Eve. She’s been on a one woman mission for years.
One year she wrapped Him up and gave Him to us as a present.
This is my original Baby Jesus and crib from when I was a child. The tiny one came from my grandma’s church. They gave them out during midnight mass.
Kathleen Madigan nails it. As Catholics we were not allowed to bother Jesus.
Back when we had ferrets, one of them was obsessed with baby (blue-eyed) Jesus from the nativity set. There was no possible way to keep it away from him. He’d find it wherever he was hidden. He’d scurry around the house carrying the swaddled infant in his mouth. I lack the theology to interpret the meaning.
Our crazy cat has been know to play with Jesus but the older he gets he’s just not that into it. We came home from work one day and that same cat was chasing what we thought was a little cat toy around the living room, nope, it was the head of a very expensive Hummel that my wife’s aunt gave to her, she bought it right from the factory in Germany sometime in the 50s. The very next day I built a nice oak china cabinet into the wall with glass doors so the cats couldn’t get near her Hummel collection.
The wife spent the day putting up the indoor decorations, I spent the day fixing things and rewiring her village. CA glue is your freind when it comes to having a Christmas village and cats.
In the past we normally had the same delivery drivers all year, this year there are so many that we couldn’t figure out how to tip them, we came up with this. Today the UPS driver smiled and waved at the camera. Inside the box are zipoc bags each with a bunch of instant lottery tickets, gotta go buy more tickets and consider an intervention for my online shopping addiction.
All of our drivers are very nice and pleasant to talk to whenever we run into them. I’m going to keep filling the box until New Year.
