Can anyone shed light on the pickle in the Christmas tree? My wife, of pure German ancestry) has a real pickle, dried out, emptied out and made into a whistle, 8"or so long. It is definitely an antique out of her granparents'family, for Carol remembers its being in the tree (lying on a branch, not hung from one) when she was teeny at her grandparents'place. We have a tree in our family antique room which is trimmed solely with antique ornaments out of her family (even the cast-iron reindeer around the base of it are antiques) -- and each year we put the picle into the tree, not knowing whence the tradition, or even if there is one. Dave Ross Denver, CO