Update on the Pickle!!

So, I decided to do some searching on the pickle ornament tradition. Mom said she received the ornament as a gift. Well, after doing some searching, I actually found that their are a whole shit load of people with this same tradition. Ya, who would've thought. A whole country for that matter. Germany. Yes, it is a German tradition. Heres the only story I could find on it....
The German Christmas Ornament pickle Story.
The pickle German glass ornaments are considered special Christmas in Germany decoration by many families where the Christmas tree was decorated on Christmas eve.
The pickle glass Christmas ornament was always the last glass ornament to be hung on the Christmas tree, with the parents hiding the pickle glass ornament in the Christmas tree among the other German glass ornaments. When the children were allowed to view the Christmas tree they would begin gleefully searching for the German glass ornament pickle. The children knew that whoever found the pickle glass ornament first would receive an extra little gift and would be the one to begin the unwrappingof the Christmas gifts.

Then, I found more material on the pickle.\

But the biggest problem with the German pickle (saure Gurke, Weihnachtsgurke) tradition is that no one in Germany seems to have ever heard of it. Over the years this question has repeatedly come up on the AATG (German Teachers) forum. Teachers of German in the U.S. and in Europe have never been able to find a native German who has even heard of the pickle legend, much less carried out this Christmas custom. It may have been some German-American invention by someone who wanted to sell more glass ornaments for Christmas. Or could the Weihnachtsgurke be an obscure regional custom that few people are aware of?

And more./

Then Rita heard from someone who claimed to have an answer that might solve the mystery. A descendent of a soldier who fought in the American Civil War, John Lower (Hans Lauer?), born in Bavaria in 1842, wrote to tell about a family story that had to do with a Christmas pickle. According to family lore, “John Lower was captured and sent to prison in Andersonville, Georgia. ...In poor health and starving, he begged a guard for just one pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and found a pickle for John Lower. According to family legend, John said that the pickle—by the grace of God—gave him the mental and physical strength to live on. Once he was reunited with his family he began a tradition of hiding a pickle on the Christmas tree. The first person who found the pickle on Christmas morning would be blessed with a year of good fortune.”

A Web search in German and English turned up only the fact that the pickle ornaments are indeed sold in parts of Germany, ranging from Höxter in North Rhine-Westphalia to Kissing in Bavaria. All of the German articles on the topic debunk the legend (some even refer to the myth article you are reading right now, first written and published in 2003). My efforts to get confirmation of the actual pickle custom from someone in Höxter have so far been fruitless. (Have the people there really kept this custom a secret for all these years?) We still lack any proof that this is truly a German custom, or that the custom is not a fairly recent invention. Has the popularity of the supposedly German legend in America brought it to Germany, or was it really the other way around? It's still a mystery.
All I can say for certain is that to this day almost no one in Germany has ever heard of the German Christmas pickle custom. So far I have found no historical or other evidence to indicate that the Weihnachtsgurke is a genuine Christmas custom from Germany. If anyone has proof otherwise or can tell me how this legend really got started, please let me know.

so I ask, then what the hell is up with a pickle?! I guess we Americans like legends behind everything, or else the makers of the glass pickle decided that the best marketing strategy would be to attach this legend and sell the pickle overseas to us Americans...