Rocco Di Leo
Dartmouth College
May 17th, 2019
Customary Lore
Title: Pickle in the Christmas Tree
Informant Data: The informant’s name is Rocco Di Leo who is a 23-year-old from Elmhurst, Illinois and is a recent Dartmouth College graduate. He has a large family who celebrates Christmas together every year and he described that his family “takes Christmas very seriously.”
Contextual Data: This folklore was collected by voice recording while we sat and ate lunch at Dartmouth College. Rocco originally learned about this folklore when he was 5-years-old from his mother who used to practice this tradition when she was a child as well. This folklore was always performed after Rocco’s family ate dinner together and everyone would gather around the dinner table and would count down from 10 to signal that the hunt for the pickle may begin. Rocco’s immediate family celebrates Christmas every year together and by immediate he means around 40 individuals (big family!) They either spend Christmas at their house or their cousin’s house each year and his mom insists on having several Christmas trees around the house and wreaths that line the entire outside of the house─ Christmas is important to their family.
Item: Each year after the whole family eats dinner, Rocco’s family has a tradition where they hide a pickle in the Christmas tree and the first person to find it gets $50. He said that this is mainly a Midwest tradition but that it’s also a German tradition. He explained, “Some also say that it’s Italian, some say it’s straight up an American thing. But my family interpreted it as an Italian thing and so we have done it every year since I was 5-years-old.” When he was younger, the first one to find the pickle would able to open their presents first, and now that they are older, the first one to find the pickle gets $50. Rocco explained that this performance impacts the whole family because it has been passed down from generation to generation and this tradition is held near and dear to their hearts. He also said that this tradition always evokes happiness within everyone in the family, so it is a great way to keep a jolly mood around the holidays.
Lilly Durbin
20-years-old
27189 Pumpkin Street
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Spring Term 2019