This 'n That Thursdays: Unique Christmas Traditions

Recently I read a post about 75 Christmas traditions from around the world.  Some I had never heard of before, and others I knew about but found out the explanations of their origins from this article.  I thought it would be fun to highlight just a few of the more unique ones here, so let's get started:

From Country Living

1) Find the pickle - a pickle-shaped ornament is hidden among the branches of the Christmas tree, and the person who finds it gets an extra present.  Although usually called an old German tradition, apparently this is not the case, and the practice is actually American in origin.  However, the original pickle-shaped glass ornaments were imported from Germany (why the Germans were making pickle-shaped ornaments remains a mystery!).

From YES! Magazine

2) Iceland's Jolabokaflod ("Christmas Book Flood") - it seems than in Iceland, people gift books to loved ones on Christmas Eve, and the rest of the night is spent reading books and eating chocolate.  Now this is one tradition I would like to see become popular here in the United States!

From HubPages

3) Christmas spiders - spiders don't get much love in America, but in some European countries these arachnids are beloved symbols of Christmas.  In Germany, tinsel originated thanks to a legend about spiderwebs spun in a Christmas tree turning to silver.  According to another legend, a spider wove a blanket for the newborn baby Jesus, so in some countries such as Poland the holiday tree is decorated with spider webs (Christmas in these nations must be an arachnophobe's nightmare!).

Image at left from Instacart; image at right from LightBulbs.com

4) Christmas ornaments - round glass Christmas ornaments mimic the shape of apples, which were the original holiday tree ornaments.  Apples were hung on the tree to symbolize the Garden of Eden (for some reason snakes and fig leaves do not seem to have acquired the same meaning or popularity!).

From Santatelevision

5) Yule goat - a Scandinavian Christmas symbol and tradition, the Yule goat seems to have come from pagan festivals related to the grain harvest.  The function of the Yule goat has changed over time, from a boisterous costumed prankster demanding gifts to a benevolent deliverer of presents similar to Santa Claus.  Nowadays the Yule goat has mostly been relegated to small straw figures hung as ornaments on Christmas trees.  In the Swedish town of Gävle, a gigantic straw goat structure is erected every year for the Yule, and it has become a tradition for pranksters to burn it down despite the best efforts of the residents to prevent the conflagration.  Apparently the rowdier customs associated with the Yule goat refuse to remain in the past!

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While I am not sure I want to add all of these traditions to our holiday celebrations, I do love reading about the ways Christmas is celebrated around the world.  Check out the link to the article at the top of the page if you want to find out more.  Have a merry Yuletide enjoying your own family traditions!