Hello everybody happy holidays welcome to the Past and the Curious. This is just a short episode. We'll call it a Past and the Curious holiday short.

Because we just have a funny story that we want to tell you about

The Christmas Pickle

so rather than listen to all of this and all the rigmarole and

let's just get started, huh? At some point in American history, most people say, around the end of the 1800s, some people began

to hide pickles in their Christmas trees.

It's a contest of sorts.

The idea is that whoever finds that hidden green pickle camouflaged against the green

needles of a Christmas tree, well, they deserve a little something extra. To you, the pickle finder, you might be blessed with a year of fortune, or you

might just have to settle for an extra present on Christmas morning. Either way, it's a win. But there is no agreement as to why there is such a practice of pickle pursuit.

Though most stories claim it to be a tradition of German origin. One version of the story is a

story story revolves around a German immigrant serving as a union soldier during the Civil War.

This man found himself imprisoned by the Confederates in the notorious Andersonville prison camp.

Now, quite factually, the Andersonville prison camp was awful.

Prisoners were woefully undersupplied and conditions were atrocious,

so it's not a stretch to believe that if this man is real,

he probably was starving.

Many of the prisoners starved.

But this particular man begged his guard for something,

anything to eat.

He said he'd even settle for something as meager as a pickle. Being that it was Christmas Eve, the guard took pity on the hungry German-born soldier and answered his wishes. One delicious Christmas pickle.

Don't mention it, pal. Now, for all this hungry German knew, this could have been his last meal. So he savored each

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