Many of us simply do not imagine a new year without richly decorated, shining all the lights of the Christmas tree. In some families, preparation for the holiday turns into a real ritual. Adults carefully unpack the box with christmas toys and alone transmit them into the hands of the shoes, and the kids with an excess hang all these wonderful balls and snowflakes on green spruce laps.
Today, the decorations for Christmas trees can be caught by anything, from traditional glass icicles and cones to chocolate bars and even glasses from Martini. But one of the most popular Christmas toys for quite a long time is cucumbers!
If you think about, the cucumber place on the New Year's table, but not on the Christmas tree. However, the world was already accustomed to such decorations, and it looks toys-cucumbers quite well. There are many legends telling why these vegetables were among the Christmas toys, and each of them deserves a separate story.
Before Christmas in the West, adults hang on the Christmas tree exactly one cucumber, trying to place the decoration so that it does not get into the eyes completely. Waking up in the morning, children are first of all begin to look for this green handsome man.
The first who will find a toy, but the hands will not touch her, gets a special gift. Little, they say, the custom looked differently, and the Christmas tree was not glass, but an ordinary salty cucumber!
By the way, the cucumber is not the only vegetable, firmly associated with the New Year and Merry Christmas. The company is, in particular, potatoes.
There is information according to which in the XVIII century gilded and silver plated potato tubers decorated the Christmas trees in Germany. For Irish, potatoes - a symbol of the country's revival. Well, in the USSR, bunnies and other little animals cut out of it, and sometimes they just baked and hang on the wire on the Christmas tree.
In general, New Year's decorations often take the shape of vegetables and fruits. Millions of families, preparing for the new year, pull out glass carrots, lemons, beets and even turnips. Previously, by the way, not toy, but the most real fruits, sweets and delicacies, were more often hung on the Christmas tree.
And one of the most popular legends about the appearance of cucumber on the Christmas tree claims: when there was no particularly indispensable year, nuts and apples for decoration were simply not. Fruits had to be replaced with salted cucumbers. The story was remembered to people and laid the beginning of a new tradition.
Americans, by the way, are attributed to both the German roots described above. But the Germans themselves consider differently. Even in the city of Rothenburg, where the Christmas Museum known to the whole world, the German origin of the "cucumber" traditions do not speak.
In fact, the cucumber is not a "German" vegetable. The inhabitants of Germany recognize his relevance on the New Year tree, but do without the traditions associated with him.
The United States is another matter. Here the legends about the Christmas cucumber is enough. There is even a story about the soldier of the time of war between the North and the South, who was in captivity Moriili hunger. At Christmas, a man pulled a single salty cucumber at the dispensers.
It all ended well, the fighter was released, he lived many more years, and until the end of his days she believed that he had survived only thanks to this cucumber. What is characteristic, the legend claims that by the origin of the soldier was Bavar. And here they showed German roots!
Among the legends about Christmas cucumber there are rather dark stories. One of them connects these vegetables with the Holy Nikolai Wonderworker. According to legend, the cruel restaurant killed three boys who drove home from school, and put their remains in a barrel with salty cucumbers.
Fortunately, in the same tavern he stopped at the night of Saint Nikolai, who exposed the bastard and raised the children. Since then, tells the legend, and there is a custom hanging on the Christmas tree cucumber.
In the video below you can hear a little more about the history of Christmas cucumbers, as well as admire the creation of glass winds. The thing is to gain a festive mood!
As you can see, the cucumber on the New Year tree is not just a decoration, but a part of the old and revered tradition. But we didn't even imagine how many stories are connected with this toy ...
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