The good luck charm that makes you snicker: the "Geldscheisser" is a symbol of wealth and fortune and a frequent New Year's Party gift. (The "Geldscheisser" - literally: money crapper - depicts a wealthy person who has money coming out of his behind and, therefore, can pick up the tab for his friends and family.)

The origin of this curious person may be the city of Goslar (Lower Saxony), located at the edge of the Harz mountain. There, a Geldscheisser figure adorns the  Kaiserworth, a Gothic building in the center of town that once housed the merchant guild and is now a historic hotel. The Grimm Brothers, Germany's famous fairy tale authors, included the Geldscheisser figure in "Tischlein Deck' Dich" (in English: The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack") where gold coins come out of a donkey's, not a human's bottom.