A Christmas Tree History

For families in North America, Germany, other parts of Europe and the world, the Christmas tree is the symbol of the Christmas Season and a living Yuletide spirit. The sight of tree lights glowing through a window inspirers warm memories and brings into our lives a pleasant aroma of the forest.

Long before the tree became part of Christmas, it was a symbol of hope and joy. In ancient pagan religions the tree played an important roll.

The Egyptians treasured and worshipped evergreens. When the winter solstice arrived, they brought green date palm leaves into their homes to symbolize life's triumph over death.

The ancient Romans celebrated the winter solstice with a festival called "Saturnalia" in honor of Saturnus, the god of agriculture. People ornamented trees with trinkets and candles. They decorated their houses with greens and lights and exchanged gifts. They gave coins for prosperity, pastries for happiness, and lamps to light one's journey through life.

In many pagan religions trees were believed to be the home of gods and spirits.

To the Vikings of Northern Europe the evergreen was a reminder that the darkness and cold of winter would end, and that spring would return.

Centuries ago in Great Britain and France, priests of the forest called "Druids" used evergreens during mysterious winter solstice rituals. They used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and placed evergreen branches over doors to keep away evil spirits. They also decorated oak trees with fruit and candles to honor their gods of harvest and light.

Late in the Middle Ages, Germans and Scandinavians placed evergreen trees inside their home or just outside their doors to show their hope for the forthcoming spring.

No one knows exactly how the Christmas tree custom began, but there are several legends surrounding it.

One legend tells of Saint Boniface, AN English monk, who organized the Christian church in France and Germany. One day, in his travels, he came upon a group of pagan worshipers. They had gathered around a great oak tree to sacrifice a child to the god, Thor! To stop the sacrifice and save the child's life, the saint flattened the oak tree with one blow of his fist! In its place, a small fur tree sprang up. The saint told the pagans that the tiny fur was the tree of life, and represented the eternal life of Christ.

According to another account, Martin Luther, founder of a Protestant faith, was walking through the woods one Christmas Eve around the year 1500. It was clear and cold outside, and the light from millions of stars was glimmering through the branches of the evergreen trees. He was especially struck by the beauty of a group of small evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmered in the moonlight. Luther was so awed by the beauty of that sight that when he got home, he set up a little fir tree indoors so he could share this story with his children. To recreate the effect of the starlight he decorated it with candles on its branches, which he lit in honor of Christ's birth.

Yet another legend tells of a poor woodsman who was returning home on Christmas Eve long ago. He encountered a child who was lost and hungry. Despite his own poverty, the woodsman gave the child food and shelter for the night. When he woke up in the morning, he found a beautiful glittering tree outside his door! The hungry child was really the Christ child in disguise. He created the tree to reward the good man for his charity.

The actual origin of the Christmas tree may be the paradise play. In medieval times, morality plays were performed all over Europe, as a way of teaching the lessons of the Bible. These plays, which showed the creations of man, and the fall of Adam and eve from the garden of Eden, was performed every year on December 24th. An apple tree was a necessary prop, but performed in winter, when all the fruit trees were bare, the actors used evergreen branches hung with apples.

The Christmas tree tradition first became popular in Germany in the sixteenth century. Devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. In areas where trees were scarce, families built Christmas pyramids instead, simple structures made of wood, and decorated with evergreens and candles. Soon the Christmas tree became popular in other European countries.

According to American legend, a celebration around a Christmas tree on a bitter cold Christmas Eve in Trenton, New Jersey, during the American Revolution changed the odds for Colonial forces in 1776. Hessian mercenaries were so reminded of home by a candlelit evergreen tree that they abandoned their guard posts to eat, drink and be merry. Washington attacked that night and defeated them.

In the mid 19th century German born Prince Albert, the husband to Queen Victoria, popularized Christmas trees in England. In 1841 the Royal couple decorated the first English Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, with candles and a variety of sweets, fruits and ginger bread. As the tree became fashionable in England, wealthy families would use all kinds of extravagant objects as decorations. In the 1850s Charles Dickens described an English tree that was decorated with dolls, miniature furniture, tiny musical instruments, costume jewelry, toy guns and swords, fruit and candy. Inevitably, as trees were appearing in Britain, they were also spreading to other parts of the British Empire, to places like the newly created nation of Canada.

The first record of a Christmas tree on public display in the United States was in the 1830s. Since most Americans considered the tree to be an oddity, the German settlers of Pennsylvania put one on show to raise money for a local church. In 1851 a German minister set up a Christmas tree outside his church. The people of his parish were scandalized and asked him to take it down. They felt it was a return to pagan practices.

By the 1890s however, North American toy importers were bringing in ornaments from Germany, and this Christmas custom was becoming popular around Canada and the United States. There was one major difference between the European and North American trees. The European tree was small, rarely more than one and a half meters, about four to five feet high, while the ideal North American tree reached from floor to ceiling.

By 1900, one in five North American families had a Christmas tree, and 20 years later, the custom was nearly universal. In the early 1900s North Americans ornamented their trees primarily with home-made decorations. Apples nuts and almonds were traditional German Canadian and German American ornaments, along with marzipan cookies in a variety of delightful shapes. Pop-corn was dyed in bright colors, and strung with nuts and berries. It was at about the same time that strings of electric Christmas tree lights first made their appearance. This made it possible to illuminate a tree many more times, for much longer, and with far greater safety than was ever imaginable with open flame candles!

Since the electric bulb made it possible for Christmas trees to glow with light for days on end, It was then that community Christmas trees began to appear all over North America. Every Christmas, in Vancouver, British Columbia, a majestic evergreen stands in the city's Bentall Centre Plaza. When it is first made ready in early December, large crowds gather a dusk, around the still dark tree. At the end of a countdown, it suddenly blazes with multicolored lights, while a local choir bursts into Holiday song! On Parliament Hill in Ottawa, a splendid tree stands aglow near Canada's Centennial Flame, while beautiful Christmas music wafts over the scene from the Peace Tower Carillon.  Sixteen Irish yew trees sparkle on San Francisco's Union Square. At Rockefeller Center in New York, a giant tree gleams above the outdoor ice skating rink. In Washington DC, the president lights a tall spruce on the white house lawn. Fifty large colored balls symbolize each state. A tall Norwegian pine graces London's Trafalgar Square, and every year since 1947, the people of Oslo have donated a Norway spruce to the citizens of London. For people in these and other cities, the tree lighting ceremony marks the beginning of the Christmas Holiday.

The commercial Christmas tree market was born in 1851 when Catskill farmer Mark Carr hauled two ox-driven sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all. Christmas tree farms sprang up during the depression. Nurserymen couldn't sell their evergreens for landscaping, so they cut them for Christmas trees. Cultivated trees were preferred because they have a more symmetrical shape then wild ones.

Six species account for about 90 percent of the Canadian and American Christmas tree trade. Scotch pine ranks first, comprising about 40 percent of the market, followed by Douglas fir which accounts for about 35 percent. The other big sellers are noble fir, white pine, balsam fir and white spruce.

In the mid twentieth century, artificial trees began to make their appearance. Although at one time, they were rather phony in appearance, today many of them look quite convincing. Some are even made to simulate a particular species, such as Appalachian Fur or ponderosa pine. At the same time, some other artificial trees made no attempt to look like the genuine article, but took innovative directions in appearance. A good example are the aluminum trees that shine with silvery or colored reflected light. As artificial trees improved, and because of their much better durability, This wonderful symbol of the Holiday Season proliferated faster than ever, until today they are seen almost everywhere!

What ever their form, whether they are natural or man-made, no matter how they are decorated, a Christmas tree is a Christmas tree! It simultaneously connects us to nature, from which the first ones came, to our ancestors who took the very same joy in their beauty, to all others around the world today who gaze upon the same sight in all its variations, to future generations who will stare in exactly the same wonder at the magic that is the Christmas tree!