Christmas tree

A German Christmas scene engraving, c. 1869; for many generations, the Christmas tree was placed on a gift table (Gabentisch) in the living room and decorated by the parents and grandparents in the afternoon of Chrismas Eve. Then in the early evening, after a bell rang, the children, freshly washed and ceremoniously dressed, were allowed to enter the room. It was a magical moment. Music was played, songs were sung, poems were recited. Then, and only then, were the children allowed to have their gifts. At the end of the 19th century, trees started to become bigger and were even placed on the floor, especially in regions were trees were vast and therefore inexpensive, e.g. Scandinavia and rural parts of the United States. In America, presents are opened on the 25th on Christmas, not the 24th, this is because of the industrialization and the fact, that, contrary to Western Europe, Christmas Eve is considered a "normal workday".

A Christmas tree (German: Weihnachtsbaum) is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, associated with the celebration of Christmas. It is of Germanic origin. For hundreds of years, the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church banned the use of "pagan symbolism of Heathenry". When it became clear that these millennia-old traditions could not be eradicated, the church decided to incorporate these traditions and redefine them as Christian. The Yule-tree or winter solstice tree (German: Jul-Baum) received the prefix "Christ" and was re-designated "Christmas tree" (German: Christbaum). Many other Norse traditions, which could not be defeated, were also incorporated into Christian dogma, for example the spring celebrations of Ostara, the godess of fertility, with her symbols of rabbits and eggs, after long resistance from the church, becoming the "Easter bunny and "Easter eggs", or the "Solstice man" (German: Sunnwendmann), the child-friendly gift bringer of the Germanic tribes for Yule. He is said to represent Wodan on his shining white horse from the treasure of Germanic mythology. German-born American caricaturist Thomas Nast (1840–1902) then created the modern version of Santa Claus (based on the traditional German figures of Sankt Nikolaus and the Sunnwendmann).

History

Martin Luther with his family on Christmas Eve

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and their children gathered around their Christmas tree in c. 1848; Fact is, this was not new to Queen Victoria, as her diary entry from 1832 shows: "We then went into the drawing room near the dining room. After Mamma had rung a bell 3 times we went in. There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the tree. I had one table for myself and the Conroy family had the other together."

Victorian Christmas

German troops decorating a Christmas tree in 1914 during WWI (→ Christmas truce)

Christmas during WWII for the Christmas truce

Donald Trump and First Lady Melania in the White House; By the 1890s, Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling. The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts. Electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home became an American tradition.

The German religious reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546) is often credited with starting the Christmas tree custom, but it can be assumed that this tradition was already cultivated for many years in rural homes in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. It is although very possible, that Luther, an opponent of Catholic dominance, wanted to provoke the church by introducing pagan customs into his home. The first of several “Tannenbaum” ballads was circulating in print at 1550. In 1605 in Strasbourg, in the then Roman German Alsace (Rhineland), a chronicler wrote (in old German): “Auff Weihenachten richtett man Dahnnenbäum zu Strasburg in den Stuben auff […]” (“At Christmas they set up Christmas trees in Strasbourg in their living rooms […]”). Strasbourg is said to have had the oldest Christmas tree market

The use of evergreens as a Christmas symbol of everlasting life goes back much further than even the 1550s, but still with a Germanic connection. St. Boniface, according to a unconfirmed myth, is said to have introduced the use of evergreens in connection with his efforts to Christianize the Germanic tribes in the 8th century. He dedicated the fir tree (Tannenbaum) to the Christ Child, displacing the pagan oak tree of Odin, other sources claim Thor. Bonifatius was a Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of Francia during the eighth century. He organized significant foundations of the church in Germany and was made bishop of Mainz by Pope Gregory III.

Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many nordic regions it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.

In 1419, a guild in Freiburg in Baden put up a tree decorated with apples, flour-paste wafers, tinsel and gingerbread as part of the winter solstice celebrations. Around this time, the Germans began to merge the ancient pagan winter traditions with the Northern European evergreen rituals. In “Paradise Plays” that were performed to celebrate the feast day of Adam and Eve, which fell on Christmas Eve, a tree of knowledge was represented by an evergreen fir with apples tied to its branches. There is also documentation of trees decorated with wool thread, straw, apples, nuts and pretzels. Demand for Christmas trees was so high in the 15th century that laws were passed cracking down on people cutting pine branches. Ordinances throughout the region of Alsace limited each household to one tree in the 1530s.

It is claimed that in Germany about 723 the Anglo-Saxon monk and missionary St. Boniface encountered pagans preparing a sacrifice at an oak tree dedicated to the god Thor (Donar). Boniface took an ax to the tree, and, when not struck down by their god, he proclaimed to the awed pagans that a nearby evergreen was their “holy tree.” Other sources report that a fir grew on the site of the fallen oak. Whether that tale is true or not, evergreen trees became part of Christian rites in Germany, and in the Middle Ages “paradise trees” began to appear there. Meant to represent the Garden of Eden, these evergreen trees were hung with apples and displayed in homes on December 24, the religious feast day of Adam and Eve. Other decorations were added—Martin Luther reportedly first hung lighted candles on a tree in the 16th century—and paradise trees evolved into Christmas trees. By the 19th century, Christmas trees were a firmly established tradition in Germany. As Germans migrated, they took Christmas trees to other countries, notably England. There, in the 1790s, Charlotte, the German-born wife of King George III, had trees decorated for the holiday. However, it was a German-born prince, Albert, and his wife, Britain’s Queen Victoria, who popularized the tradition among the British. The couple made Christmas trees a prominent part of the holiday’s festivities, and in 1848 an illustration of the royal family around a decorated tree appeared in a London newspaper. Christmas trees soon became common in English homes. German settlers also introduced Christmas trees in the United States, though the custom was not initially embraced. Many Puritans opposed the holiday because of its pagan roots, and officials of the Massachusetts Bay Colony actually outlawed celebrating Christmas. Their dislike of the holiday was such that they even closed their churches on December 25. It wasn’t until the 1820s that Christmas began gaining popularity in America, and the country’s first Christmas tree reportedly was displayed in the 1830s. The Christmas tree’s popularity spread with the help of the influential magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, which in 1850 published the 1848 illustration of the British royals, though the depiction of the family was altered to appear American. This and other efforts helped make Christmas trees popular in the United States by the 1870s. Christmas trees spread around the world, but the tradition began to have a detrimental impact on forests, especially in Germany. As a result, Germans began making artificial goose-feather trees in the 1880s. These trees found their way to different countries, and over time the goose feathers were replaced by other materials. A notable development occurred in the 1930s, when a manufacturer of toilet bowl brushes allegedly used surplus product to create an artificial tree. These bristle trees gained in popularity but were later supplanted by aluminum and then plastic versions. In the United States, 84 percent of Christmas trees displayed by households in 2021 were artificial, according to data from the American Christmas Tree Association, while 16 percent were live.

By the 19th century, this custom had spread across most of Germany and beyond. Several royal Germans are credited with helping extend the tree decorating custom beyond Germany’s borders. The Duchess of Orleans, German princess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, wife of the Duke of Orléans, Louis-Philippe's eldest son, brought it to Paris in 1840, while other Germanic royals brought the Christmas tree to England and other European countries. But it was commoners—emigrants from Germany—who brought the Weihnachtsbaum to America. In the Balkans The tradition of decorating a Christmas tree began in the mid-19th century as a result of German influence, but homes in the area had previously been decorated with greenery, flowers and fruit for Christmas Eve.

The Austrians, Germans, and Swiss are now using more “electric candles” for tree decoration, but many a Germanic Christbaum continues to glow with the warm light of real wax candles. Germans use special candle holders and have learned how to do this safely; the candles are not left to burn for a long time or without someone in the room.

Victorian Christmas

Queen Charlotte

It was back in 1800, more than a decade before the Regency began, that historians found the earliest reference to a yew tree being used in Christmas celebrations. The Christmas custom of taking a tree inside the house and decorating it was well-established throughout the German states, and Queen Charlotte, who came from the German duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, introduced this tradition to England. John Watkins describes the royal family Christmas celebrations of 1800 in his biography of Queen Charlotte:

At the beginning of October the royal family left the coast for Windsor, where Her Majesty kept the Christmas-day following in a very pleasing manner. Sixty poor families had a substantial dinner given them; and in the evening the children of the principal families in the neighbourhood were invited to an entertainment at the Lodge. Here, among other amusing objects for the gratification of the juvenile visitors, in the middle of the room stood an immense tub with a yew-tree placed in it, from the branches of which hung bunches of sweetmeats, almonds, and raisins, in papers, fruits, and toys, most tastefully arranged, and the whole illuminated by small wax candles. After the company had walked round and admired the tree, each child obtained a portion of the sweets which it bore, together with a toy, and then all returned home quite delighted.

Queen Victoria

The tradition of adorning was insisted on by German Prince Albert, after he married Queen Victoria of England in February 1840. He surprised her and all the courtiers when he filled Windsor Castle with Christmas trees, saying that one of his customs should be settled in England. The Queen, after the initial shock, accepted the proposal and thus introduced the German Christmas customs to the English court. The image of her and the prince standing in front of the Christmas tree soon started a new trend and people started decorating Christmas trees en masse. The English immediately wanted to have a Christmas tree in their home, and Prince Albert soon began the tradition of giving Christmas trees to schools and barracks. Unlike the Christmas trees in Germany, which were decorated with apples and oranges, the prince decided to decorate his Christmas tree with candies, paper decorations, bows and small toys. Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, actually introduced the English to decorating a Christmas tree 40 years earlier, but Prince Albert and Victoria made the custom popular. The Victorian Christmas tree it was very richly decorated with various cakes, marzipan candies, hard candies, biscuits, fruits, small toys, paper fans, whistles, dried fruits, nuts and all kinds of berries. Homemade dolls, children's gloves and freshly baked colorful cookies were often placed. Candles were carefully placed on the tops of the branches, and the top was usually decorated with an angel. Children who made cranberry wreaths or paper flowers often helped to make the decorations. It was definitely the most popular Victorian ornament the angel with glass wings, golden hair and dress and porcelain face. Angels were a Victorian ideal for childlike innocence.

American Christmas

Several cities in the United States with German connections lay claim to that country’s first Christmas tree: Windsor Locks, Connecticut, claims that a Hessian soldier put up a Christmas tree in 1777 while imprisoned at the Noden-Reed House, while the “First Christmas Tree in America” is also claimed by Easton, Pennsylvania, where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816. In his diary, Matthew Zahm of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recorded the use of a Christmas tree in 1821, leading Lancaster to also lay claim to the first Christmas tree in America. Other accounts credit Charles Follen, a German immigrant to Boston, for being the first to introduce to America the custom of decorating a Christmas tree. August Imgard, a German immigrant living in Wooster, Ohio, is said to be the first to popularize the practice of decorating a tree with candy canes. In 1847, Imgard cut a blue spruce tree from a woods outside town, had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, and placed the tree in his house, decorating it with paper ornaments, gilded nuts and Kuchen. German immigrant Charles Minnigerode accepted a position as a professor of humanities at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1842, where he taught Latin and Greek. Entering into the social life of the Virginia Tidewater, Minnigerode introduced the German custom of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas at the home of law professor St. George Tucker, thereby becoming another of many influences that prompted Americans to adopt the practice at about that time. An 1853 article on Christmas customs in Pennsylvania defines them as mostly “German in origin”, including the Christmas tree, which is “planted in a flower pot filled with earth, and its branches are covered with presents, chiefly of confectionary, for the younger members of the family.” The article distinguishes between customs in different states however, claiming that in New England generally “Christmas is not much celebrated”, whereas in Pennsylvania and New York it is.

The tradition was introduced to North America in the winter of 1781 during the American Revolutionary War by Hessian soldiers stationed in the Province of Québec (1763–1791) to garrison the colony against American attack. General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel zu Eisenbach (1738–1800) and his wife, Friederike Charlotte Luise, née von Massow, held a Christmas party for the officers at Sorel, delighting their guests with a fir tree decorated with candles and fruits. In 1805, a school for American Indians run by German missionaries sent students “to fetch a small green tree for Christmas.” Similar examples pop up in the first half of the 19th century in the Midwest and further West, such as the German immigrants in Texas who decorated trees with moss, cotton, pecans, red pepper swags and popcorn. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans.

The Christmas tree only became very common in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century. The first image of a Christmas tree was published in 1836 as the frontispiece to The Stranger’s Gift by Hermann Bokum. The first mention of the Christmas tree in American literature was in a story in the 1836 edition of The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, titled “New Year’s Day”, by Catherine Maria Sedgwick, where she tells the story of a German maid decorating her mistress’s tree. Also, a woodcut of the British Royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, initially published in The Illustrated London News December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas 1850, in Godey’s Lady’s Book. Godey’s copied it exactly, except for the removal of the Queen’s tiara and Prince Albert’s moustache, to remake the engraving into an American scene. The tradition of decorating trees around Christmas was largely considered a “foreign pleasantry” until around 1850.

The republished Godey’s image became the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America. Art historian Karal Ann Marling called Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, shorn of their royal trappings, “the first influential American Christmas tree”. Folk-culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker states, “In all of America there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850–60 than Godey’s Lady’s Book”. The image was reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become even more common in America. When Edward H. Johnson was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of Con Edison, he created the first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in New York City in 1882. Johnson became the “Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights”.

The sidewalks of Brooklyn are green and fragrant despite the cold weather when Christmas tree sellers line up on pathways around the city to sell their symbols of the season. But it wasn’t always so easy to procure a tree in New York City. Sales of the conifers started in the 1850s, the same decade the German cultural tradition of Yuletide pines soared in popularity in the U.S. (One inspiration was a lithograph depicting Queen Victoria’s tree published in Godey’s Lady’s Book.) A hunt for the story of the very first Christmas tree salesman in New York City turns up the same tale oft repeated: A “jolly woodman” named Mark Carr had the idea to bring trees from his land in the Catskills two weeks before Christmas in 1851. He set up a stand at the corner of Greenwich and Vesey Street at the Washington Market in Manhattan and sold out his supply. A source is rarely cited to verify the tale but it may have originated with an 1878 article in the New-York Daily Tribune that described Carr’s “lucky speculation in conifers”; the story was repeated in a New York Times article in 1880. Whether the details of that first lot are fact or folklore, Christmas tree sales reached Brooklyn in the 1850s. The Brooklyn Bazaar, located on Atlantic Avenue between Clinton and Henry streets, offered “handsome” trees for sale to Brooklynites in December 1855. Christmas tree sales quickly flourished. In 1880, the New York Times estimated that 200,000 trees would be brought into the City, with “large bushy trees” costing $8 or $10. That would be almost $200 in 2015 dollars. The average price of a Christmas tree today? The National Christmas Tree Association says the national average paid for a tree in 2015 was just over $50.

Artificial trees

The first artificial Christmas trees were developed in the German Empire during the 19th century, though earlier examples exist. These "trees" were made using goose feathers that were dyed green, as one response by Germans to continued deforestation. Feather Christmas trees ranged widely in size, from a small 5-centimeter (2 in) tree to a large 2.5-meter (98 in) tree sold in department stores during the 1920s. Often, the tree branches were tipped with artificial red berries which acted as candle holders. In general, it can be concluded, the use of artificial Christmas trees is frowned upon in 20th and 21st century Germany and Europe (only for the socially disadvantaged), whereas 83% to 84% consumers in the USA indicate using artificial trees.

In December 1964, TIME magazine heralded a new Christmas trend: fake trees. The Polyvinyl versions looked more realistic than ever before, and they made up about 35% of the $155 million Christmas tree business in the U.S., according to an article headlined “And a Profit In A Polyvinyl Tree.” Fifty years later, artificial trees still dominate the Christmas tree industry. Of the roughly 95 million American households with Christmas trees in 2018, 82% of the trees were artificial and 18% were real, according to a Nielsen survey. The reasons for this ratio are many. Climate change has made trees more difficult to grow. Farmers planted fewer trees during the Great Recession, and in general, trees take 7 to 10 years to grow. And there are even shortages of the farmers who grow them, as they age out of the business. Artificial trees are also hailed as having a lower environmental impact than buying trees, when the transporting them to retail outlets is factored in. But the National Christmas Tree Association is appealing to those same environmentally conscious consumers by arguing that real trees support local economies — they are grown in the U.S. and in Canada, while many plastic trees are manufactured in China — and that real trees are renewable resources and recyclable, while the artificial kinds could contain some non-biodegradable parts. Five decades ago, a professor in Montreal who was hard at work trying to develop a longer-lasting real tree explained to TIME the larger philosophical argument for preserving the tradition of real Christmas trees: “We live in an artificial environment. The Christmas tree is one of the few things left that is natural.”

Each year, 33 to 36 million Christmas trees are produced in America, and 50 to 60 million are produced in Europe. In 1998, there were about 15,000 growers in America (a third of them "choose and cut" farms). In that same year, it was estimated that Americans spent $1.5 billion on Christmas trees. By 2016, that had climbed to $2.04 billion for natural trees and a further $1.86 billion for artificial trees. In Europe, 75 million trees worth €2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) are harvested annually.

Asian Christmas

All over Japan, you'll find homes, offices and stores decorated with Christmas lights, decorations and Christmas trees, although Christmas is not a public holiday. Asian themed trees are often comprised of Cherry blossoms, round lanterns, glitter birds, fans, gold glass ball ornaments, and pink sheer ribbon. The tallest Christmas tree in Southeast Asia at Central World Square Bangkok Thailand dominates the Ratchaprasong. In China, Christmas has become more and more popular in large cities where a large number of expats live, with greater Western influence. Although Christmas is a public holiday in Malaysia, it is mainly commercial. Although Indonesia is a Muslim country, Christmas is celebrated by many. Christmas in Indonesian is known as Natal, from the Portuguese word for Christmas. In Bali, the Christmas tree is made from chicken feathers.

O Tannenbaum

"O Tannenbaum" (English: O fir tree), known in English as "O Christmas Tree", is a German Christmas song. Based on a traditional folk song which was unrelated to Christmas, it became associated with the traditional Christmas tree. The modern lyrics were written in 1824 by the Leipzig organist, teacher and composer Ernst Gebhard Salomon Anschütz (1780–1861). A Tannenbaum is a fir tree. The lyrics refer to the fir's evergreen quality as a symbol of constancy and faithfulness. Anschütz based his text on a 16th-century Silesian folk song by Saxon composer Melchior Franck (1579–1639), "Ach Tannenbaum". Ludwig Christian Erk and Franz Theodor Magnus Böhme provide an even older source in the German Liederhort with the song Es hing ein Stallknecht seinen Zaum ("A stable hand hung his bridle").

Lyrics

Anschütz (1824)

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Mut und Kraft zu jeder Zeit!
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren!

Loose English translation (although there are other versions)

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
How faithfully you blossom!
Through summer’s heat and winter’s chill
Your leaves are green and blooming still.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
How faithfully you blossom!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
With what delight I see you!
When winter days are dark and drear
You bring us hope for all the year.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
With what delight I see you!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
You bear a joyful message:
That faith and hope shall ever bloom
To bring us light in winter’s gloom.
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
You bear a joyful message

See also

• List of German inventions and discoveries

External links

• Plants of the Winter Solstice
• Victorian Christmas
• How Christmas trees became a tradition: A story with German roots
• Photos Of Christmas Trees From A Century Ago
• See What Christmas Trees Have Looked Like Over the Past 100 Years

Videos

• Staats-Oper Berlin: O Tannenbaum (1930s)
• Helene Fischer: O Tannenbaum (in German)
• Andrea Bocelli: O Tannenbaum (in three languages)
• Celtic Woman – O Tannenbaum (Live At The Helix In Dublin, Ireland/2013)
• Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti: O Tannenbaum (in German)
• How Christmas trees stopped being just a German thing (Vox on YouTube)