Traditions

Pictured tonight is our tradition of the "Christmas Pickle" aka "Pickle Present." Hanging a pickle on the Christmas tree is an old German tradition. The way the tradition goes is that on Christmas Eve there is a pickle hidden somewhere on the Christmas tree. On Christmas morning the first child to find the pickle gets a special gift. The tradition at our house started many years ago. We hide the pickle and then the first child to find it on the tree gets to open that year's Pickle Present. The Pickle Present contains toys, books, etc. that stay at Grammy and Goosey's house to be played with when the grandchildren come to our house. Often the Pickle Present is the "main toy" that we give for that year...for example last year we gave the Fisher Price Nativity...one year we gave the Fisher Price Pirate Ship...one year it was all old fashioned toys like Woody and I might have played with as a child...sometimes it consists of several small things that will appeal to each of the age ranges...this year the present contained a couple of difficult puzzles, a shape puzzle, an age appropriate truck for Elijah (Esther liked it too), an ice cream cone kaleidoscope, an old-fashioned pin ball-type game, and a book. All from oldest down to the to the youngest (well, not Elijah this year) really enjoy looking for the pickle. The two pictures on the left show them all looking around the tree to find it. The larger pickle pictured is the pickle that we hang on our tree...it seems to have become too easy for the oldest to find...so this year we sort of played a trick on all of them...we took our pickle ornament off and brought the one from Nathan and Kathy's tree (smaller one pictured in Graham's hand)over and hid it on our tree...and, we didn't tell any of the children. The younger children were at an advantage since they would recognize the smaller one if they happened to spy it! And...Graham found it this year...first year that Erin or Alex haven't found it first. It is tradition to take a picture of the victor with the pickle ornament in his or her hand and then the victor gets to open the pickle present...picture on the top right with the children gathered around Graham. They seem to remember pickle presents from year to year...it is often pointed out to me when one of them is playing with something...that that particular item had been a pickle present. Once our tree gets decorated each year, the children have what they call "pickle practice." This year Graham headed straight to the tree, when he first came over after I got the tree decorated. It didn't take him but a short time to find the pickle and tell me that I needed to hide it some place different (and I thought that I had put it in a really good place when decorating the tree!). So one of the adults will hide it some place else on the tree till another child finds it. We didn't do "pickle practice" as much this year since they were "banned" from the house for a lot of preChristmas due to my secret sewing.

So there you have another Dorrell tradition!

Today has been a rather slow-moving day for Woody and me...I think that things leading up to Christmas and then Christmas itself have sort of pulled the rug out from under...at least my feet! We did go for a walk around the block this afternoon...with the wind blowing...brrrrr! I still alternate not being able to breathe with having to blow my nose constantly...and I still can hardly taste anything (no fun with Christmas goodies around!). Woody has watched TV and DVD's and read and rested. He also has been a big help and accomplished a lot more around here today than I have...he vacuumed up glitter, Styrofoam, paper bits, ribbon pieces, etc. in the living room and family room. I didn't have enough energy today to lift up the vacuum nozzle...much less push/pull it around!

One year ago this date, Woody had his first appointment with Dr. Jeffrey Sosman at Vanderbilt. My...so much has happened since that day a year ago!