Christmas Unwrapped: Uncovering a Barrel of Glass Pickles

Ah, the holidays. Days filled with Christmas traditions - moments and things that center our holiday memories. Some are specific to our families, but others have become part of how we celebrate each year. Many of us assume they have been handed down, year after year, generation to generation. And some of them have been.

Others are assumed to be centuries old but have a much more modern origin. Some people in the immigrant-established United States have even created mythologies about these more-recent traditions, claiming that they were something brought with their ancestors as they migrated to North America from around the world. Over the next few days, we are going to unwrap more of our traditions and mythologies about Christmas.