Decoy Pickle: A Secret Christmas Plan

On Christmas morning, my sister and I wake up and rush to the tree to look for a glass pickle. Weird, I know right? This is how it works: my mom hides a green pickle ornament on the tree on Christmas day, and then she releases Jess and I from our racehorse chutes to go find it. If you find the pickle ornament, then you get an extra present, referred to as "the pickle present."

Only this actually caused some tears and fighting in the past, so the pickle present is actually a family gift (like a movie or board game for everyone), but the winner gets to unwrap the present. Jess and I mostly like the satisfaction of winning. She has found that stupid pickle for at least two years in a row now, and it is quite a let down for me and my 20/20 vision. Jess has contacts/glasses, so how she manages to spot that hidden ornament is beyond me. But I've got a secret plan this year.

I can write about all my secret plans concerning my sister on this blog, because she never reads it. So this is what I am going to do: I am going to go to the dollar tree and buy a decoy pickle ornament (I saw them there last week). Then what I will do is sneak over to the tree on Christmas Eve and place the decoy pickle in a more noticeable location. My hope is that in the morning Jess will spot the fake ornament first and get excited about winning, and this will buy me buy me some more time looking for the actual pickle. She'll be doing her victory dance until she realizes that I am still frantically searching the branches and that what she is holding in her hands is some cheap, plastic imitation of the real thing. Sucker.

 If you are wondering why in the world my mother decided to start this tradition, it's because she was in a shop in her German-themed hometown looking at ornaments and found the pickle hanging there with the explanation attached. Apparently this whole pickle thing is a German tradition. The pickle is supposed to bring good luck and was the last ornament placed on the Christmas tree. On Christmas morning the first child to find the pickle was rewarded with an extra little gift left by St. Nicholas. This German tradition encouraged the children to appreciate all the ornaments on the Christmas tree, rather than hurrying to see what St. Nick had left for them. This tradition encourages my sister and I to shuffle through all the branches in a mad hurry, not caring about any ornament unless it's green. We do plenty of ornament appreciation while we unpack them one by one and hang them on the tree.

Travis, my sister's husband, sits this tradition out. He is totally allowed to participate but chooses not to, probably because he doesn't want to get in the way of my and Jessy's elbows. I admit, the first year he spent Christmas with us, I was worried. I thought he and Jess would tag team me and find the pickle and both gloat over it. But Travis knows to stay outta my way when it comes to hunting for hidden objects. But this decoy pickle idea I have, I think it's going to work. I'll let you know what happens.