If I had been writing for some sort of less-savory publication, this column would have been a LOT more funny. As it was, my recounting it for friends on New Year's Eve after some bubbly was even a hoot. Alas, the world of Napa can't handle my pickle jokes, so this is what I ended up with.
(Note: This is not my actual pickle, but rather a pickle that I bought on after-Christmas Clearance for my aunt, uncle and cousin so that they, too, could have the pickle game at their house next year.)
Does anyone else out there have crazy holiday traditions? My family certainly has their fair share. On top of the normal traditions I grew up with, it seems that as I get older, I need to add to the mix and create my own.
My first year in Napa, I joined my friend Stacey and her family for Christmas Eve and Christmas. I wasn’t able to make the trek home to SoCal, and her family was more than welcoming.
They had this silly game they played called “the pickle game.”
I didn’t get very into it, but they were in full force, fighting their way to the tree, shoving everyone else out of the way. The basics of the game are this: One person hides the pickle ornament (yes, it looks just like a real pickle, except it’s a little more sparkly) while the others leave the room. When the pickle-hider yells “go,” everyone rushes at the tree to find the pickle. The pickle-finder is then declared the winner and is issued the “pickle prize.”
Simple enough, right?
For five years, this tradition has run smoothly in my household. Sure, there were some ornament casualties as people got more and more ruthless and the tree swayed side to side. But in general, everyone was on their best behavior.
Until this year.
This year, someone decided to get a little ahead of the game and mess with my head.
I had some newbies at my home for the holiday this year (my aunt, uncle, cousin and gramma) along with some veterans (boyfriend Peter, my brother and his girlfriend, as well as Peter’s mom, dad and sister).
Christmas Eve, my brother and cousin jokingly took some photos posing with the pickle. Each was sure they were going to be the champion the next day when the pickle game had its time. That was the last time the pickle was seen by the whole family.
Christmas morning, we dragged our not-so-bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed selves out of bed, only to discover that someone had run off with the pickle in the middle of the night.
Oh, sure, it seems innocent enough. Someone is playing a practical joke on Michelle. Pretending to “hide” the pickle before I got a chance to.
Ha freaking ha.
I looked high and low, all over the tree. No one so much as smirked when the pickle was mentioned.
I started pointing fingers. You must have done it, I told my cousin. He’s a teenager, so obviously he was the culprit with the best motive. He swore it wasn’t him, and that maybe my brother was to blame, since he had the best opportunity, having slept in the living room the night before. Maybe Hailey the dog ate it, thinking it was food? Or maybe Peter’s sister drove down in the middle of the night, hid it from me, then drove back to Chico?
Panic started to set in. What if we couldn’t find the pickle? Target wasn’t open. I couldn’t go buy another pickle, and I certainly wasn’t going to pull an actual pickle out of the fridge and hang it on the tree. Or maybe I would. Maybe the pickle smell would make the pickle-stealer break and give up the pickle ornament.
Then, about halfway through the day, my aunt sees a glint of glitter in a household plant. What’s that about, she inquires. Sure enough, stowed away in my fake fern, the pickle was hiding.
Still no one ’fessed up to it.
The pickle game was played later in the afternoon, and, for the most part, it all went smoothly. The tree stayed vertical, no one poked an eye out (although in reflection looking at the photos, it was likely people were trying) and my aunt was victorious as the pickle finder.
I almost refused to give out the pickle prize (travel games and some super-sweet foam swords) until the initial pickle hider came clean. Alas, I gave in and let Sally have her gifts. It was, after all, Christmas, and throwing a temper tantrum wasn’t going to help any of us. But I still haven’t found out who did it.
When I first played the game, I was told it was a German tradition. A quick Internet search dispels that myth, but this is of very little consequence to me.
Frankly, I don’t care if it’s a German tradition, a Stacey tradition or a Choat-Sander tradition. I just want to know who hid my pickle.
Gal on the Go appears every other week, alternating with Jennifer Huffman’s Surrendering to Motherhood. Contact Michelle at
mchoat@napanews.com.
