Christmas salad on the tree

I've always felt slightly superior to other families at tree-decorating time -- because WE have a Christmas Carrot, and no-one else we know does. (actually, we have TWO, which makes me doubly smug.)

I bought those ornaments in a bag of other ornaments from a chain store years ago, and when the Princess was a baby, she kept pulling one off the tree, which distressed her Big Bother greatly.
"NO!" he kept saying. "Not the CHRISTMAS CARROT!"

Thus it was christened, and thus it has ever been.

It's a good thing there are two, because the kids greet them with huge excitement every year, and I know there would be a fight if we had only one.

I'm waiting for the year they ask, WHY do we have Christmas Carrots? but so far, so good.

Anyway, the other day I saw this thing on Pinterest (it's scary how many of my utterances begin that way..........)

.... which came from here

and I knew I had to have a Christmas pickle.
{If you can't be bothered following the link and reading the story, the gist is that the pickle is hidden on the tree on Christmas Eve, and the first child to find the pickle in the morning gets an extra present.}

I love creating or adapting bizarre or fun traditions, and I think my kids will love this (so will Daddy, who will be roped in to hide the pickle).

Anyway, rather than leave this post till closer to Christmas, I decided to publish it now, because if you want to get yourself a pickle (or, indeed, a carrot or two) you'll need to get busy. I could only source pickles from overseas, and don't even get me started on the postal 'service'.

BTW -- these are often described as a German tradition, but they're not. Pure US of A!