Many myths surround the origin of Christmas trees.
The modern celebration of the Christmas tree is often traced to tree symbolism in pre-Christian winter rites, where the Vikings and Saxons worshiped trees. A legend popular in the 15th century is based on the story of Saint Boniface in medieval Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), who in the 8th century prevented a pagan human sacrifice under an oak tree by cutting down that tree. In its place grew a fir tree, its branches representing the eternal truth of Christ. Some versions of this legend say that Saint Boniface cut down the new fir tree and hung it upside down, which is believed to have led to the tradition of hanging trees upside down to represent the Holy Trinity – sometimes with an apple wedged into the spot instead of a star.
References also exist in early modern Germany based on the legend of Martin Luther who is said to have believed that pine trees represented the goodness of God and led German Protestant Christians to bring decorated trees into their homes. In fact, it is said that Luther was the first to add lit candles to an evergreen tree. It gained popularity beyond the Lutheran areas of Germany, and the Baltic provinces during the second half of the 19th century, initially among the upper classes.
All of these stories may have helped spread the Christmas tradition.
However, we should mention that the use of evergreen trees, wreaths and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Jews. Tree worship was common among pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Norse customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at New Year's to scare away the Devil and setting up a tree for the birds during Christmas. During the midwinter Roman festival of Saturnalia, homes were decorated with wreaths of evergreens, along with other earlier customs now associated with Christmas. Further, it survived the custom, observed in Germany, of placing a Yule tree at an entrance or inside the house during the midwinter holidays.
And so we arrive at medieval Germany, which is considered the source of the true origin of Christmas trees.
In 1419, a guild in Freiburg erected a tree decorated with apples, flour wafers, tinsel and gingerbread. In the "Paradise Plays" performed to celebrate the feast of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas Eve, a tree of knowledge represented an evergreen fir tree with apples tied to its branches. Flanders finds documentation of trees decorated with woolen thread, straw, apples, nuts and pretzels.
The demand for Christmas trees was so high in the 15th century that laws were passed in Strasbourg to crack down on people cutting pine branches. Decrees throughout the Alsace region limited each household to one tree in the 1530s.
The earliest known representation of a Christmas tree with a fixed date is found on the carving of a private house in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of Germany, now France), dated 1576. While the earliest Christmas tree market is believed to have been just over the southwestern German border in Strasbourg in Alsace (then part of the Rhineland, now in present-day France), where decorated Christmas trees were sold during the 17th century as Weihnachtsbaum. Flanders says the "first decorated indoor tree" was recorded in 1605, in Strasbourg, decorated with roses, apples, wafers and other sweets.
Modern Christmas trees have been associated with the "tree of paradise" of medieval mystery performances given on December 24, the feast and name day of Adam and Eve in various countries. In such works, a tree decorated with apples (to represent the forbidden fruit) and wafers (to represent the Eucharist and redemption) was used as a setting for the work. Like the Christmas crib, the Paradise tree was later placed in homes. The apples were replaced by round objects such as shiny red balls.
At the end of the Middle Ages, an early predecessor appears mentioned in the 15th century Constitution of the Cistercian Monastery of Alcobaça in Portugal. The Constitution of the local priests of the Cistercian Order refers to what may be considered the earliest reference to the Christmas tree: "Note on how to put the Christmas branch, scilicet: On Christmas Eve, you will look for a large branch of green laurel tree, and you will reap many red oranges, and you will place them on the branches that come from the laurel tree, just as you have seen, and in each orange you will put a candle, and you will hang the branch by a rope on the pole, which will be next to the candle of the high altar.”
In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far away as Russia. Introduced by Fanny von Arnstein and popularized by Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg, the Christmas tree arrived in Vienna in 1814 during the Congress of Vienna, and the custom spread throughout Austria in the following years. In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced in 1840 by the Duchesse d'Orléans. In Denmark, a Danish newspaper claims that the first certified Christmas tree was lit in 1808 by Countess Wilhemine of Holsteinborg. It was the old countess who told the story of the first Danish Christmas tree to the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen in 1865. She had published a fairy tale called The Fir-Tree in 1844, recounting the fate of a fir tree used as a Christmas tree.
Introduced to England in the early 19th century; the Christmas tree was popularized in the mid-19th century by the German-born Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. The Victorian tree was decorated with toys and small gifts, candles, candies, popcorn strings and fancy cakes hung from the branches with ribbons and paper chains. Brought to North America by German settlers as early as the 17th century, Christmas trees were all the rage in the 19th century.
They were also popular in Austria, Switzerland, Poland and the Netherlands. In China and Japan, Christmas trees, introduced by Western missionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries, were decorated with intricate paper designs.
In Greece this custom of the fir tree as a Christmas decoration came for the first time with the Bavarian King Otto in 1833, which means that it was already established as a custom in the royal houses of Northern Europe. It was first decorated in the palaces of Nafplion and then in Athens, where the inhabitants lined up to admire it. It is noted that in France as a custom it was introduced several years later than in Greece by the Countess of Orleans, as mentioned above.
The most important Christmas trees in the world are those decorated at Buckingham Palace in London and the White House in the USA. It is noted that today, for commercial and touristic reasons, such trees, during the Christmas season, are also decorated in non-Christian countries.
The most expensive Christmas tree in the world today is the one brought to the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where all its decorations are really expensive jewels, with precious stones on them available for sale, the total value of which reaches 11 million dollars.
It should be mentioned that the Catholic Church had long resisted this custom of the Lutheran Church and the Vatican Christmas tree first stood in Vatican City in 1982.
How Christmas trees became popular in the US
References to Christmas trees in private homes or establishments in North America date back to the late 18th and early 19th centuries. But the image of a decorated Christmas tree with presents below has a very specific origin: an engraving of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children gathered around a Christmas tree, looking at the presents below, published in Illustrated London News in 1848. The premiere women's magazine in America at the time, Godey's Lady's Book, reprinted a version of the picture some years later as "The Christmas Tree".
Illustrations of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children gathered around their Christmas tree helped spread this tradition to the US. "This singular image cemented the Christmas tree in the popular consciousness, so much so that by 1861, the year of Albert's death, it was firmly believed that this German prince had transplanted the custom to England with him when he married," Flanders writes.
The tradition of giant Christmas trees in public spaces appears to be an American one dating back to the late 19th century. The power lobby first went up in 1931 when the building was still under construction; putting so many unemployed during the Great Depression to work, the tree became a symbol of hope. So he gave impetus to the first "National Christmas Tree" at the White House as a publicity stunt for the glories of electricity: a nearly 60-foot-tall balsam fir covered in 2,500 bulbs. And a 20 meter high Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center.
*Cover Photo: Martin Luther is pictured with his family and friends in front of a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, Wikimedia Commons