The Darker Christmas Pickle Legend
According to a second, slightly darker version, three Spanish boys, who for some reason happened to be in St. Nicholas’s hometown of Myra, Turkey, were kidnapped by a local shopkeeper. This shopkeeper had a particular hatred for children, but not content with merely holding them hostage, he chopped them up with an ax and stored their remains in—you guessed it—a pickle barrel. When St. Nicholas found out about this, he did what any upstanding member of the community would have done and prayed for them to be returned to human form. Miraculously, God heeded his prayer, and the three boys emerged unscathed from the pickle barrel.
As if preserved on purpose, in some countries the tradition of the Christmas Pickle has leaked into the modern day. While any trace of the Christmas Pickle may have shriveled up in the UK, the US city of Berrien Springs, MI is (not particularly well-) known as the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World, holding a (presumably not particularly well-attended) annual pickle festival towards the beginning of December.