The Christmas Pickle

So after a very yummy Thanksgiving, Bennett's mom and I went shopping on Friday. There weren't that many good deals out there, but we ended up buying a few.

But in store after store, we kept noticing something strange; A pickle as a Christmas ornament. (We also saw a bunch of mushrooms, but thought the pickle was stranger). So that night we just had to find out what the hell a pickle had to do with Christmas. This is what we found:

The Christmas PickleBy B. Francis Morlan
It is a quaint tradition that nobody wants to claim. And its story would not be the first tradition of Christmas born of a total fabrication. It is the little-known tradition of the Christmas pickle.
The Christmas pickle is not really a pickle at all. It is a pickle-shaped ornament that is the last one hung on the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child to find the Christmas pickle gets an extra gift from Saint Nicholas. Or so the so-called legend goes.
There are two other versions of the origins of the Christmas pickle. One is a family story of a Bavarian-born ancestor who fought in the American Civil War. A prisoner in poor health and starving, he begged a guard for just one pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and found a pickle for him. The pickle by the grace of God gave him the mental and physical strength to live on.
The other, perpetuated in Berrien Springs, MI, is a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the innkeeper, a mean and evil man, stuffed the boys into a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, became aware of the boys' plight, tapped the pickle barrel with his staff, and the boys were magically freed.
Berrien Springs calls itself the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World. They celebrate with an annual Christmas Pickle Festival held during the early part of December. A parade, led by the Grand Dillmeister who passes out fresh pickles along the parade route, is the featured event. You may even purchase the German glass pickle ornaments at the town’s museum.
Rumor and speculation place the origin of this tradition in Germany. However few in modern-day Germany recognize or have even heard of the Christmas pickle. Some in West Germany blame generations of East Germans who may have had nothing more than pickles to decorate their Christmas trees with after World War II. But even families and historians in East Germany shrug at the mention of the Christmas pickle tradition.
Regardless of where it came from, the Christmas tradition survives. Ornament manufacturers continue to make the specialty decoration and enjoy perpetuating the myth of its legendary origins -- false though they may be.

(taken from mymerrychristmas.com).

Bennett's mom got us this ornament yesterday, so we are now the proud owners of a glass pickle ornament, and a new tradition begins.

Anyway, only one thing left to say.... GO GATORS!!!

haha...christmas pickle.

Doughnuts and the Macy's Parade

There is a lot I have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

But there are a couple of things that I always remember doing as my sister and I were growing up, and I will share these memories as my Thanksgiving.

We'll start with Thanksgiving morning; We would get doughnuts and watch the Parade. I know it sounds lame, but it really was tradition. I remember when Dad, Jenn and I would go to Dunkin Donuts on Johnson's Ferry while Mom started Thanksgiving dinner and we would get all kinds of doughnuts.

Christmas Eve: We would go to church, then drive around the neighborhood next to ours and look at Christmas lights. We would come home, change out of our church clothes and have appetizers (the ones I remember most are the cheese ball and shrimp), and open our presents.

I remember when my sister and I were playing in the garage next to my dad's BMW and we spilled boxes on it. He wasn't happy.

My dad has all these videos of me and my sister playing on Christmas morning with all our new toys; I remember the ET doll that my sister had. I remember all the Barbies that we had (and even cutting their hair.)

So on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my fiance, my friends, my family, my job, the people I work with...but what I'm most thankful for is my memories and that I had a family who was awesome enough to let me have all of them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Woo Girl

So last week Bennett and I were watching one of the best shows on TV; How I met your mother. And they had these girls on there (the party ones, the ones that wear cowboy hats and like sparkles), and they were called Woo Girls.

Hi, my name is Laura and I'm a woo girl. You know the girl in the bar that after you take a shot, she goes "woo". Yeah, unfortunately that's me. And unfortunately it makes me be friends with people I don't want to be friends with, i.e., Bennett's first girl friend. But you put a little champagne in me, then I am a woo girl making friends with Bennett's first.

But oh well. I guess being a woo girl isn't so bad; I mean sparkles are fun, and sometimes a cowboy hat is fun to wear, and shots with the girls followed by a woo are always fun.

So things are good here; going to the gump for Thanksgiving, and I'm making the deviled eggs. Can't wait.

Woo.

All Grown Up

Last weekend Robin got married; in a few months she will be having a baby. It's weird to think of how much we've all grown up. Just saying the phrase, Robin is married, and she is no longer Robin Cantrell, but Robin Ballard. It's just all so strange. It just seems like yesterday that we were in high school, going to Pope's dumb football games, driving to school in the morning with 311 blasting. Seeing Liz and Heather and Brett and Deanna all at Robin's wedding made it even the more clear that we are growing up. We are NOT the same people we were in high school.

I am getting married in 7 months. Even that sounds weird to say. That I could find someone so amazing who wants to spend his entire life with me. I don't know where I would be right now without Bennett. He is what gets me through every day; he is why I scream at every driver when I'm on my way home, just so I can spend an extra minute or two with him. I love that there is someone in the world who knows everything about me and loves me anyway. I will never be able to express how grateful I am that he is in my life.

Next weekend we have another wedding to go to (yet another sign that everyone is growing up), this time in Montgomery. This time it'll be Bennett's past and mini high school reunion. I don't know why I'm being so emotional about everything; could be that I'm sick and being at work on a Sunday with nothing to do allows you the time to think about everything.

I don't know.... I am happy. I really really am.

Better than Dead

So, that's basically all I'm better than these days. I all of a sudden feel not worthy of much; my wedding photographer made Bennett feel like a rockstar, and I was just in the background. I mean I know I'm not a photogenic person, but there is no need to make me feel any uglier than I feel.

Then Bennett keeps getting all these offers from schools to go to; while my GMAT score is too bad for anyone even to stop and look at anything else. So kids, morale of the story? Don't study in school. It does you no good to graduate cum laude if you can't do well on some stupid test. Bennett doesn't understand that it makes me feel like I wasted not only my high school years studying, but my college years as well.

It just pisses me off and he doesn't understand any of it. Nothing is going right.